


Fell From the Sky

by CopperMask (Hard_boiled_candy)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alcoholic Dean Winchester, Alternate Universe - Human, Banter, Domestic Castiel, Humor, Hurt Castiel, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Medicinal Drug Use, Rape Recovery, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Build Castiel/Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2018-12-06 22:35:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 21
Words: 51,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11610351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hard_boiled_candy/pseuds/CopperMask
Summary: Cas Novak has never had it easy, but life is as hard as it can be when he comes to on Dean Winchester's sofa after being violently assaulted. Sam thinks Dean's taken in a stray to distract him from the gaping hole that quitting drinking has left in his life.  Dean says otherwise. Cas just knows that Dean is the most compelling - and best-looking - man he's ever met, and he's in no hurry to leave when Dean generously opens his home for Cas's recovery.





	1. The Stray

Dean heard something in his back yard, and went looking for a flashlight. He was a private investigator, not a little old lady scared of noises at night, and he expected to find evidence of a coyote or some other critter digging in his yard.

The back gate, where it opened on a park, was hanging wide, which surprised him. Halfway to the back door there was a naked man in the grass, out cold.

He figured it for a turned-around, passed-out frat boy, but then he saw blood and bite marks and realized this was no college kid and no fraternity prank. The man was in good shape, but pushing forty, at least. Dean checked to make sure he was still breathing.

“Oh, Jesus,” Dean said, distressed.

The man was covered in bruises, and his feet were bleeding, but he was breathing okay.

Dean swivelled the flashlight around, looking for any evidence as to how he’d gotten into the yard, or any evidence at all, since this was likely to be a police matter. Bupkes.

“Shit,” he said. Not what he’d had planned for the evening, but it would make a great story. _Well, no sense standing around like a tourist._

Dean took off his bathrobe and put it over top of the man until he could bring out a warmer blanket, since he was icy to the touch. It meant having to scoot back into the house naked himself, but Dean wasn’t gone for long.He threw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, grabbed his cell phone and a blanket from the linen cupboard and went back outside.

He pulled the bathrobe aside and took two quick photos, just in case it might help the police, and this sorry individual, whoever he was.

With much effort he got the man upright – he made whimpering noises of complaint – and onto the living room couch.

With a moan, the man opened his eyes. They crossed a little and then focussed on Dean, and then the man closed his eyes again and lay down.

“You need a doctor?” Dean asked, rather stupidly.

“I’m – “ the man said. “I don’t know where I am.”

“I’m Dean Winchester, and you’re in my house.”

It was a whisper. “How did I get here.”

“Found you in my yard and carried you in.”

There was another long pause. “I guess you’re having a bad day too. What day it is?”

“What?”

“I might have been out for days,” the man said.

“God, I hope not,” Dean said, and shuddered. “It’s Thursday, Thursday night.”

“So it’s been one day, I guess,” the man said. He tried to sit up and then limply fell back.

Dean held up his hand as if that would prevent the man from getting up. “You got pretty chewed up there buddy, you should probably get medical attention.”

“I think I remember him biting me,” the man said blankly.

“God. So you were kidnapped?” Dean asked, sitting up.

“Not exactly. I went to his house willingly.” There was the ghost of a self-mocking laugh. “I got burned out of my apartment two nights ago and he tricked me into thinking he was with the emergency housing people.”

“What a dirtbag,” Dean said, his eyes bugging out. “Anything I can do, lemme know, drive to cops, hospital, you’re probably going to need a – “ and he trailed off.

“Rape kit,” the man said.

“I don’t mean to pry,” Dean said. “But sometimes people don’t want to go to hospital, and don’t want to report. They just want a safe dry place to rest until things kinda blow over. And you don’t have to decide now.”

Dean got up and said, “Tea or coffee.”

“Something stronger?” and there was that almost inaudible laugh again.

“Not if you just woke up from being drugged, no,” Dean said, pulling a face. He didn’t want to say that he’d just quit drinking three weeks ago and it was the longest he’d been without alcohol in the house for almost twenty years. Nor did he mention that he’d been hospitalized that first week, being too stupid to realize that quitting alcohol cold turkey could _kill_ you. Not something you lead with. 

“I’ll start you out on hot water first,” and after he got the kettle on, he ran hot water from the tap into a glass.

“I don’t know your name,” Dean said as he handed it over. He saw the bite marks again as the man reached, wincing, for the glass, and the blanket slipped. “I’ll get you some clothes,” he said, thinking how incredibly vulnerable the man would feel.

He pulled out the Dandy Warhols t-shirt that Sam had given him that he never wore because it was a little too tight, as well as being backwards, since he was the one who drove the classic car and Sammy was the one who had experimented with drugs. It said “You Drive Fast, I’ll Do the Drugs” with a muscle car in the middle. Dean called “Loose jeans or loose sweatpants?” from his bedroom door.

“Sweats please,” he said quietly.

“I’m Cas Novak,” the man said as he accepted the clothes, including socks and boxer briefs. Dean went into the kitchen and kept his back turned for a minute.

“You decent?” Dean called.

“Okay,” Cas said after a long minute.

“I bet you’re starving. Soup? Grilled cheese?”

“I think now I have clothes to wear I should probably go to hospital. May I borrow your phone?”

Dean said, “Sure,” and handed over his cell phone.He took it back, rolling his eyes in mute apology, and unlocked it, and then gave it to Cas.

Cas saw a picture of four adults on the phone, Dean, two women and a man. They were all making stupid faces and hanging over the side of a boat, and they looked like they were having a blast, with their arms ‘round each other, laughing.

“She’s very pretty,” Cas said of the woman Dean was next to.

“Best lookin’ lesbian I know, that’s for sure, that’s Charlie, maybe you recognize her from her FanDamnFamily youtube channel. The other one’s Sam’s squeeze Jess, and that’s my baby bro, Sam.”

“You’re lucky,” Cas said limply. He made a call, apparently getting the number from memory, and Dean decided to head for the washroom to give him some privacy.Cas had a low rumbly voice, and Dean heard the strain in it as he spoke to some scumbag who was apparently his employer.

“Oh, hi sir, wasn’t expecting you to pick up – “ and then he made a series of efforts to be heard.

“ – Just wanted to let you know I won’t be in – “

“Well, I was mugged, sir, I’m not in good enough shape to –“

“I know sir, but if you call the other merchandizer – “

“Yes, there is a hard deadline but I’m literally giving you as much notice –“

“It’s not a cockamamie story, sir, I’ve been unconscious for the last twelve hours –“

“No sir, I haven’t been drink –“

“No I haven’t been to hospital, a kind stranger just loaned me his cell phone so I could – “

There was a long, ugly silence, “If that’s how you feel sir.”

“I can’t sir, my pass card burnt up in the apartment fire,” Cas said.

There was another pause. “I’m sure you can deduct the twenty-five dollars from my last pay check – “ and Dean heard the forlorn little clunk as Cas put down the phone.

“Holy fuck,” Dean said, making no pretence not to have heard.

Cas was almost doubled over. He looked up and the flash of blue as his eyes met Dean’s was mesmerizing. He’d never seen someone look so beaten down and yet so calm. Maybe it was a drugged calm, or maybe the calm of shock.

“Homeless, assaulted and unemployed in less than two days,” Cas said slowly, after a minute.

“Must be some kind of record,” Dean said.

“Are you always this cheerful?”

“No. Sometimes I’m _really_ inappropriate, you know, the laugh at a funeral kind of guy,” Dean said. “C’mon, I’ll drive you to hospital. And just so you don’t start freaking out, you can come back here and sleep afterward. And then you’re going to tell me if you had anything in a storage locker because maybe you’ll have some spare clothes there.”

There was a little pause. “Yeah, the one in the building, the one that burned down.”

“So you got burned out of that apartment block the other day. Maybe your luck will get better,” Dean said.

Cas was numbly starting to consider other problems. “It can’t get worse. I don’t have any ID. I wonder what will happen at the hospital if I’m a John Doe.”

“Not a problem,” and Dean fired up a data base or three and with some input from Cas, within ten minutes had facsimiles of all of Cas’s ID printed out.

“This is kind of amazing,” Cas said, holding the sheets. “You even got my insurance card.”

“Better get on it and use the damned thing before your boss pulls the plug.” Dean slid into his leather jacket and grabbed his keys.

Cas fell silent. He moaned every time they hit a bump in the road, and then tried to keep it quiet. Dean shook his head and sighed.

Waves of pain and misery and shock and loathing and disgust and horror and untethered, crazy sadness passed through Castiel’s mind and body. Afterward he wondered what he might have experienced if Dean had not been there. He found out he had glass in his feet. He’d been in so much pain from everything else, he hadn’t separated that particular pain out.

The ER was slow, and he was seen almost right away. The bites and the cuts to his feet were tended. That took a while. The sexual assault kit took a long time, and he hadn’t expected it to be worse than the rape; he’d been unconscious for the worst of it and now under the harsh lights he was painfully conscious of every part of his body as they asked questions and gently touched, swabbed and manipulated him. For one crazy second he almost asked if Dean could come in and then realized that out of all the impositions he’d made over the course of the evening, that one was too much.

He got painkillers, and a few to take home; he was given prescriptions for post-exposure prophylaxis to HIV, and the STIs treatable with antibiotics. Dean wandered off to get the prescriptions filled. To keep himself organized he started keeping an itemized list of everything he owed Dean.

_My life, possibly. I wouldn’t likely have died of exposure on such a balmy evening but maybe further misadventure might have come along, my luck being so scarce._

_These well worn clean clothes. These silly motorcycle boots. He doesn’t even have a motorcycle anymore but he kept the boots. A cup of tea. A warm blanket. A trip to the hospital. Company. My ID. A place to stay._

The police were already there on another matter, and while one babysat the thrashing victim of some hellish intoxicant as he attempted to part his handcuffs from the bed railing, his partner, a sharp-faced black woman with a hairdo that reminded Cas of the prow of a ship, took his details. She was courteous, receptive and professional. She asked who his friend was, and when he told her he’d found his unconscious person, she looked concerned. “I’ll have to speak to him.”

“He’s still here, he’s going to drive me home.” At least he thought so. For a second he thought that Dean might not come back, and he remembered he had no home, and no money, and no car, and no clothes that weren’t borrowed and he felt himself collapsing into a chair, just as Dean came up with two cups of coffee, scowling like a thundercloud at the policewoman, whom he imagined to be browbeating poor Cas. Then he smiled a thin smile. He recognized her.

“Dean Winchester? _You_ found him?” the policewoman asked.

Dean saw Cas’s beseeching look and shot him a reassuring glance. “Yeah. It was ten-forty-five p.m. Heard something amiss in the back yard, found him about halfway between the park gate and my back door.”

“No-one else around?”

Cas felt like he’d become invisible. Dean kept darting glances at him.

“Didn’t see or hear anyone else,” Dean said, pushing his lower lip out in a considering frown. “I checked around with the flashlight but it was just him, unclothed and unconscious, nothing else, no other footprints but his, or anything else that didn’t belong back there. Looked like he came to, ran away from wherever he was and then fell unconscious again.”

“Not likely to be anything at the scene.”

“I don’t think so, no, but daylight might help.”

The policewoman shrugged. “Someone will be by in the morning.” She turned to Cas. “Would you be willing to work with a sketch artist? I’d really like to get this guy off the street.”

“Yes, I suppose so. I’d like to rest now if I can.”

“Yeah, unless it can’t wait; I’ll bring him back to the station house tomorrow.” Dean figured Cas was asleep on his feet.

“All set here,” she said.

As soon as the door was shut in the car, Cas turned to Dean and said, “I can’t thank you enough for your help.”

“It’s how things are supposed to be, Cas,” Dean said.

“I know that’s not true,” Cas said gloomily.

“I’ll admit it hasn’t been like that lately for you but now they’ve quit examining your ass, you can relax and have a proper shower, I’ll bet you’re dying for that.”

“Are you always this – coarse?” Cas asked.

“Well, there’s always the times I’m worse ‘cause I’m doin’ it on purpose,” Dean said with a pucker-mouthed grin. It faded, and he sighed. “I thought I was trying to see the situation from your perspective, which, I gotta be frank with you, is messing with me, not that it’s in any way your problem, except you’re going to be staying in my house, and I haven’t shared it with anyone since Sam moved out.”

Cas painfully tried to address this. “I’ll leave as fast as I possibly can. I may go back to Atlanta. I’m wiped out here, and I know who to talk to back home to find work, and I promise I won’t be stuck here six months from now like something in a bad sitcom.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, “That would be like a bad sitcom.” He gave a one-sided smile. He concentrated on driving. 

Cas felt unreal. It was the drugs. They told him it had mostly been GBH, and that he’d feel like shit for at least a day, separate from the injuries.He looked at Dean to try to convince himself that what was happening was _real_. His head began to swim and he started to panic. Right at the point he was going to lose it, maybe even cry, Dean started talking in a calm, friendly voice, almost like a man trying to calm a frightened horse.

Cas realized he _wasn’t_ falling into a morass of anxious pain or possibly already dead. Dean was _not_ an angel driving him to heaven because he was already dead; he wasn’t dead.

It felt like it though.

Maybe it was safe to sleep.He woke up when Dean shut off the Impala and levered him out of the passenger side and up the front stairs.

Cas nearly melted down when he realized he still hadn’t showered.

“Look,” Dean said, “What’s more important, sleep or shower?”

“I have to get this dirt off me,” Cas muttered.

“I hear ya.Can you stand by yourself?”

“Dean,” Cas said, with what might have been the vaguest hint of a laugh, “I’m not expecting you to scrub my back.”

“Good,” Dean said, with a quick bark of laughter, “But I ain’t keen to let you lock the door in case you have an – issue.” He pointed the items out. “Soap, towels, shampoo, and take your time, but say something once in a while so I know you’re okay.”

Cas turned the water up as hot as it would go and tried to get the slimy, degraded, bruised feeling to wash off. He sobbed a couple of times but forced himself to stop crying with an effort that hurt worse than the bites.

He didn’t want to leave the shower, but he didn’t want to keep Dean awake any longer, and soaking any longer would have made the bandages start to come off.

Dean found him another t-shirt and boxers to change into. Memory got ripply and hazy round the edges.

Cas had a final memory of Dean wrapping him in blankets on the sofa and putting a feather pillow under his head.

Dean texted his brother Sam, “Picked up a stray. I’ll tell you the whole weird story later.” He was so tired himself, he kicked off his boots and slept on top of his bedcovers, in his clothes.


	2. Shopping Expedition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas needs clothes.

A little before dawn Dean woke up, hearing a sharp sound coming from the living room. For a second he couldn’t place it, and then he could, and shook his head, sighing. Cas was crying, but being quiet about it. Every once in a while the ratchet sound of his breath became loud enough to insinuate itself down the hall.

Dean decided to use the opportunity to get some more pain medication and water into Cas. He went to the kitchen to fetch it. “I got some more T3s and water for you,” he said quietly, sitting on the coffee table. Cas sat up. After he watched Cas down another painkiller, he handed him a tissue.

Cas’s eyes were in shadow, and his mouth was drawn down. He accepted the tissue without comment and dabbed at his face. Then he wadded it up and tried to throw it into the trash basket, but he was too sore to make a good job of it. Dean put the tissue in the trash and said, “I’ve never needed much sleep. I’m pretty much up now. I’m going to be heading out in a couple of hours to the gym and work. I set up the tablet so you can use it, since I can’t leave you the phone and I gave up the landline a while back.”

Cas looked at Dean’s guileless face and wondered how he’d feel if told that him being kind and sensible was the only thing preventing Cas’s suicide this morning, and decided against telling him.

“Going to try to sleep some more,” Cas said. “Thanks,” he added awkwardly.

“Today’s a big day,” Dean promised. “Today we’re moving all of your stuff into Sam’s old room.”

“All my stuff,” Cas said. He owned nothing, except copies of his own ID.

“I’m not wearing those clothes now, they have your cooties on them,” Dean said, “So yeah, all five of your garments.”

“I’m richer than I was yesterday,” Cas said. He couldn’t tell himself whether he was being sarcastic or reverent, and it worked either way, with his dry delivery. And was Dean saying that he considered Cas unclean, or was he somehow a deranged grade-schooler in a grown man’s body? _Hurry – up – drugs._

“That’s the ticket,” Dean said, trying to be philosophical and sounding like a cheerleader instead.

Cas put his head down and went back to something resembling sleep. _The situation could only be improved_ , he blearily thought, _if I were unconscious._

Dean carefully locked the house and went to the gym. After he worked out, showered and changed, he forced himself to get the healthiest breakfast burrito he could stand, rather than the usual avalanche of bacon, eggs, pancakes and cheese that he had when he was out. Dean was never one to do things by halves. He’d stopped drinking and started eating healthier in the same week, and three weeks in, his weight was markedly lower and he was feeling much peppier, although there were certain times of day he got antsy and the first week had been horrifying, (so horrifying!) that he was determined never to allow himself to fall into the grip of alcohol again. There was also the bonus of the money he was saving. He’d started chewing gum, which was weird, as he associated it with losers, but it did calm him down a little.

He ate the burrito as he drove, and swung by a place he was supposed to be staking out, but his instincts had proven correct and his ‘one-sided acquaintance’ (as he sometimes referred to the people he surveilled) was still parking his car - and his dick - at his non-wife’s place.

Dean took a walk through the back alley and counted the beer cans on the back step through a hole in the fence. Either his girlfriend had tipped over into just barely functional alcoholism on his surveillance buddy’s brand of beer, or his ass had been parked there since Sunday. Case closed. He needed to come back and get another couple of photos, but the client was probably past caring at this point. This was the third girlfriend in as many years. Divorce seemed inevitable.

By then the mall had opened, and he could rev up the ol’ shopping cart.

He thought about shopping for Sammy, back when. The back-to-school frenzy and Christmas had been the two consumer blow-outs of the year. He’d gone a little nuts on gifts when Sam moved out, but it had proven a good investment, for Jess had fallen in love with the espresso machine and moved in with Sam so as not to be parted from it.

Or so the now romantically embellished story went. Dean liked to believe it had helped.

When he saw Sam and Jess together and knew they were right, stupidly right, for each other, it had hurt him all the way through, but he only got that way now when he was drunk, or needy. And he wasn’t drinking any more. Dean loved how even when they were scrapping, they fought fair, and Sam loved Jess with a fierceness that made Dean immensely proud. And Jess knew how lucky she was; that made her a lot easier to love.

Of course, he had no-one, unless you counted the barmaids from here to about four hundred miles away at every point on the compass, none of whom were likely to come to his funeral – a cheerful thought. He realized that unless he changed his life, he was never going to have what Sam and Jess had, (with _or_ without kids) and it was starting to twist him up a little. Not a lot, just enough to get him thinking about things.

Sam had told him once that his skill-set was in responding immediately and appropriately to ludicrous situations, and that _thinking_ about things, being all ‘ruminative and considered and pensive’, really wasn’t in his wheelhouse. They’d been eating take-out while Jess was at spin class and Dean had slung a plastic fork at his brother by way of response, although not with much accuracy, or heat for that matter.

He thought about all the years he’d been doing this, pushing a shopping cart up and down an aisle to buy Sam something. It had been to accomplish a series of goals, like tick boxes - buy this to allow him to go to school - to make something of himself - so he can eventually leave. In the beginning, knowing that looking after Sam wouldn’t be a life-time commitment had been the only thing that kept him on the rails; when Sam was finally ready to go, Dean thought his heart was going to get ripped out, and it was worse because there was no one he trusted with both his hurt and the feeling that he was wrong to even think about holding Sam back. His brother had long soared past him in terms of self-direction and intelligence. Holding him back would have meant Dean was being childish, and greedy, and Sam meant too much to be subjected to Dean’s feelings of abandonment.

_Yeah, well this is not an address on Memory Lane ya want to linger at, so move along, Winchester._

Toothbrush. Cas looked like a medium bristle man to Dean, so into the cart it went. He almost got a novelty tooth brush, one that looked like a toilet brush with a little toilet as a holder, but kept himself in check. A five pack of t-shirts, blue, black and white. A five pack of boxers, white. A five pack of pairs of cotton socks. He eyeballed the jeans and belt, making sure to buy a brand whose sizing he could trust. Oh, look, a bathrobe. He held them out in front of himself, realizing he looked ludicrous. _Black velour or blue terry cloth, yeah, no._ _Blue terry it is._

He’d found out Cas’s shoe size the night before during the fiasco of trying to find shoes he could get onto his sliced up feet and put sneakers in the cart.

_Don’t wanna be thinking about that, either. Him walking all stiff-legged and tears leaking out. And not complaining._

Hopefully Cas’d see his note, that he’d be back later in the day.

A laundry basket. There was a trashcan in the room still, but no laundry basket.

More laundry soap, he was almost out and he was washing for two again. He smirked to himself. Then he started thinking about pie.

_Well now._

Pie would be last, or he’d never be done here. He got to the checkout, blanched a little bit at the total, and then thought, _If the same shit had happened to Sammy I hope like hell someone would look after him_ , and quit worrying about it. He slung his purchases in the trunk.


	3. Incredibly Average Pie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam is startled to learn that the stray Dean picked up is not, in fact, an animal.

By the time he’d picked up the business mail, gassed up the Impala, had a bowl of phở while reading the paper, gotten his scope back from the gunsmith and shot the shit with the boys at the gunshop for a while, it was about one o’clock.

Cas was watching TV when he came in. As soon as he saw Dean’s face he turned it off like a guilty child. Dean thought, _Weird_.

Cas said, almost expressionless, “The police came. There was nothing in the back yard, and they asked a few more questions and left.”

Dean responded, “Wasn’t expecting much from them, to be honest. Hope you were okay on your own – I went a little nuts at the mall today.”

Cas looked worried. “What did you buy?”

“Clothes for you. You don’t even have a toothbrush!”

“I hope you kept receipts, I have every intention of paying you back,” Cas said firmly.

Dean shrugged. “Not my primary concern. I’m putting everything in your room, you can figure out what to do with it.”

Limping, Cas followed him into his bedroom and sat at Sam’s old desk while Dean laid out his purchases. Cas felt tears come into his eyes and looked away.

“C’mon man, at least tell me I’m in the ballpark,” Dean said, gently chiding, and when he saw the tears threatening to fall, decided to bail. He said, “Yeah, I’ll just get out of your room now.”

In the doorway, he turned and said, “Oh, I forgot. Keys.” He walked back into the room, carefully not looking at Cas, put the house key and the garage key on the desk, and left, closing the door behind him.

“Thanks,” Cas said to the door. He gulped, feeling like an idiot. Cas changed into his new clothes. One fat tear got onto his new T-shirt. For a second he thought about changing, and then realized that Dean wouldn’t comment anyway. The sneakers fit. That blew his mind. The jeans even fit, just a little loose, but the belt took care of that.

Dressed, he returned to the living room and said, “I really can’t thank you enough.”

“Did you eat?”

“I thought about opening a can of soup but got distracted… and I slept a little more after the police left.”

“I bet,” Dean said sympathetically.

“I was using the tablet to try to and find out about replacing my ID.”

“Shit, yeah! Good idea. Paper copies won’t cut it.”

“And then there’s the issue of my credit cards.”

“He stole ‘em,” Dean said. He had gotten into the pie already. There was the merest smudge of blueberry on the corner of his mouth. He ate like a starving teenager, unreservedly and with no dignity.

Dragging his eyes away from that little blue smudge, which made him want to cross the room, pick up a napkin and clean it from his face, Cas said, “Whoever has the card now used it to purchase 1500 dollars worth of goods, including rims for his cars around ten a.m. this morning.”

Dean’s response was unexpected. “Perfect!” he crowed. “I can’t fucking believe he did that!”

Cas was less than thrilled. “How is that perfect! He assaulted me and robbed me!”

“Yeah and I don’t mean to minimize that. But with the time stamp I can get the security tapes from the mag shop and then I can find out who this motherfucker is and take a chair leg to him,” Dean said, somewhat indistinctly around the pie.

“I still have to straighten things out with my credit card provider,” Cas said, somewhat mollified. He admitted to himself that the hope of watching Dean beat the shit out of the evil fuck who had done this to him was a perfectly understandable emotion, not a sign that he had suddenly become evil himself.

“And you _will_ straighten it out, and I’ll drive you to your bank too, but at least I got the notion of sending this fucker to the hospital to keep me cheerful while I wait,” Dean said.

“Do you always talk with your mouth full?” Cas asked.

“’S’my house, buddy, I can prance around naked if I feel like it – and that really wasn’t the right thing to say.Sorry.” Dean seemed genuinely annoyed with himself.

“I shouldn’t criticize,” Cas said. It _was_ Dean’s house. And Dean had been the soul of helpful kindness from the minute he’d laid eyes on him.

Dean didn’t hold a grudge. “Have some pie. Maybe if you’re all gummed up trying to eat this pie you’ll have less energy to criticize me, plus you must be frickin’ starving.”

There was a bang on the back door, and then keys in the lock.

“Don’t worry, it’s Sammy,” Dean said, and stood to greet his brother.

Cas heard a pleasant baritone voice. “Dude, you never texted me back! So what’d’ya get, cat, dog, gerbil, capybara…. “ There was a pause as a massively tall and cheerful looking man, maybe half a dozen years younger than Dean, took in Cas, sitting on the sofa.

“…Human…?” Sam said.

“Sam, you and I should prob’ly have a quick chat.”

Sam was normally a lot more clued in, and he said something that would not normally have made it past his censor. “ _This_ is your stray?”

Cas shot Dean a look of, _‘Really?’_ and stood up, trying to look civil.

“Hi, I’m Cas. I’ll leave you two to talk,” he said, and he limped off to his room.

He sat on his bed and wrapped his arms around his knees, feeling like all the air had gone out of his lungs. So Dean thought he was a stray, did he? He’d texted his brother that he’d picked up a stray, and Sam had come in expecting a fluffy puppy, by the sound of things. Not a broke and homeless pariah with three more weeks to wait before the blood tests for all the diseases his rapist could have given him came back. And he wasn’t out of the woods for the bites getting infected. Cas had been doing a good job of not thinking of that so far today, but oh well, there it was again.

Sam rapped on his door. “Hey, it’s Sam, I didn’t mean to be a dick. I’m really sorry about what I said.”

“It’s okay,” Cas said. “Pretty much anybody would prefer a puppy.”

He heard Dean mutter, “Don’t take it personal, he’s had a rough fucking time.” Then, louder, he said, “Cas, c’mon out, we don’t bite.” There was another pause and Dean said, “Aw, Jeeeeesus, Cas, I didn’t mean it – seriously – I’m just a complete fucking asshole.”

Cas got up and said through the door, to put them out of their misery. “You have to admit that was an ignorant thing to say.”

Dean was anxious to apologize. “It was, it was, and I’m really sorry man.”

“Me too,” Sam said helplessly.

Cas cracked the door open. “I’ll have some pie now.”

With an air of triumph, Dean served out pie.

Sam shrugged and joined them. He awkwardly attempted conversation.

“Dean just told me you got burned out of your apartment, that three-alarm fire down by City Hall.”

The pie was okay. Nothing special, just okay. “I didn’t have much.”

“I was going to ask you if you had contents insurance,” Dean said.

“Didn’t get around to it. My brother hadn’t been paying rent on our apartment and he left town and I got evicted, so this was the place I downsized into.”

“Your brother,” Sam said slowly.

“Let’s just say, not all of us enjoy the ‘magazine cover’ sibling relationship,” Cas said. “My brother sold my car when I was expecting to use it to get to work, thereby more or less stranding me, and then my apartment burned down and I’m now waiting to find out the results from the blood tests after I was sexually assaulted.”

The blood drained from Sam’s face.

“We’ll find the bastard,” Dean said, trying to stay positive.

“And _what_ , Dean? I have to stay in town for a trial? Didn’t you say Sam was a lawyer?” Cas turned to look at Sam, and narrowed his eyes. “Riddle me this, how long does a sexual assault trial take to get a court date in this town?”

“Uh, not my direct area of expertise, but maybe six, eight months, and there’s usually procedural stuff … it could conceivably be –“

“Maybe a year, maybe two,” Cas finished. “The cops were sympathetic, but I didn’t get the impression when they came back this morning that they cared that much, although they certainly didn’t say anything untoward.”

There was a silence. Dean and Sam eyed each other.

“That was incredibly average pie,” Cas said, and excused himself from the table. “I’ll be lying down. Dean, if you want to give me a ride to the Wound Care Clinic at some point later this afternoon I’d be really grateful. Otherwise if you could loan me bus fare that would be great.”

Cas turned to Sam and said with all the dignity he could muster, “I will never be able to repay your brother for his kindness in helping me, but I’ll do my best to make sure he’s not going to be out of pocket for taking in a - a stray,” and he limped to his room and closed the door.

“Holy shit,” Sam said blankly.

“Feisty little son of a bitch, ain’t he?” Dean said approvingly.

Sam’s expression was one of appalled disbelief. “ _That’s_ your take? What the hell’s _wrong_ with you?”

“Nothin’! I’d rather see him mad than crying on the sofa,” Dean said. “And it’s all my fault, for using the word ‘stray’! If I’d just waited until a decent hour to call you, I wouldn’t have fucked this up so bad,” he said, his cheer turning to dismay. “I really am a bit of a dick,” he said under his breath, while his brother rolled his eyes.

“Anyway, he ate something, which is good, and maybe you can slide back to wherever you were going, and I’ll see about getting my hands on some security footage and catching this guy. I’d like to see justice done sooner rather than later to this asshole. Then I’m gonna plate him some lunch, because that was quite the hangry face we got there.”

“Dean, you’re acting - I dunno what’s got into you.”

Dean rounded on his brother, saying, “You know Sam, the thing is, when I went out this morning looking for some spare clothes for him, I thought ‘what if something like this happened to Sam?’. That you were homeless, and had no friends, and some fucker’d taken advantage of you. Would somebody look after you when you needed it?”

“I do have friends… and insurance,” Sam said. Dean shook his head, and then palmed his eyes.

“Not everybody does,” Dean said. “I know he kinda fell from the sky, and I’m still wondering about that, but he had glass in his feet and bite marks all over him, and he’s going to be out of it and fucked up for weeks and some of those bites look bad and he may get infections and abscesses the doc said, and the thing is, Sam, I saw his face when he woke up this morning and he looks like a man who doesn’t need an excuse to kill himself. Now I know I can’t stop him, if he’s determined, but I’m hoping to at least distract him until he can cope a bit better. If he’s mad, he’s not suicidal. At least not right now. But I’m starting to get a feel for how his mind works, and ten bucks says he’ll apologize to _me_ for being rude to _you_.”

“I was rude to _him_.” Sam squirmed a little.He was usually making excuses for Dean, and did not enjoy the feeling that Dean had the moral high ground for once.

“Buy him flowers,” Dean said, making a face. “Buy him lunch.”

“I’ll think of something,” Sam said. “Maybe more free legal advice, if his assault ever gets to court. Find him an assault survivors group.”

“I doubt the case will ever get to trial,” Dean said coldly. “But you never know.”

“You know what this is, don’t you Dean?” Dean got that look on his face. The one that said that he was not going to hear you. “This is you nearly being dead two weeks ago when you quit drinking so fast you had to be hospitalized.”

“And you saved me.”

“I almost fucking didn’t, Dean, and you doing whatever this is with this Cas thing is just some weird compensation, and I really don’t know what to make of it.”

Sam stood. Dean came around the table and gave him a hug. Sam resisted at first, with a bit of a frown, then put his arms up and clapped his brother on the back.

“You really are the perfect little bitch,” Dean said, his voice softening into family teasing mode.

Sam squeezed Dean’s shoulders so hard that he winced, and then pulled back and leaned his forehead affectionately into his brother’s, highlighting their height difference, which he knew Dean hated. “Jerk,” he said, eyes closed and smiling beatifically.

“Get lost, Moose, and don’t forget to lock the fucking door,” his brother said, backing away. “And next time – call, I got a roommate now.” He shouted it, mostly for Cas’s benefit.


	4. Lists and Errands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas assemble a shopping list and get to know each other better. There is a threat of pie.

As soon as Sam was gone, Cas reappeared, wraith-like, in the living room.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what got into me. I didn’t mean to be so disrespectful to your brother.”

“Quit lookin’ like that, you’re pissing me off,” Dean said.

“I’m trying to apologize,” Cas said.

“For what, getting mad because I called you a stray to my brother? I’m the one you should be pissed off at. But you can’t be pissed off at me cause I bought you a toothbrush this morning, is that it?”

Cas didn’t say anything, but those big blue searchlights he called eyes got even bigger.

“I think,” Dean said, taking a deep breath, “That your life is hard enough right now without me telling how you should be feeling every goddamned minute. Scream, cry, call me a brute,” and here Dean made a rather amusing face, and he saw Cas’s lip twitch, and he continued, “watch TV in a fog on the sofa, or just come along with me to some appointments and try to distract yourself. I care, I do, but not enough to tell you what to do.”

“I’m still in shock, maybe,” Cas said. “I don’t want to scream. I just want to be still and quiet, and not have to think. The drugs help.”

“It may never be fine, perfect and hotsy-totsy. But I guarantee you it’ll be better, if you concentrate on getting better.”

“Hotsy-totsy,” Cas said. There was that tiny, tiny flicker of amusement again.

“Something my grandma used to say. Apparently,” Dean said. “So now the bribery with food begins. Ya gotta eat something.”

“I’m not really hungry,” Cas said.

Dean sighed. “Well, I know your ass feels like taking a dump is the last thing it wants do, but seriously, ya gotta eat something. The doc pulled me aside and told me I should be feeding you something called a stool softener. Which is in the bathroom, I kinda forgot to mention it.”

“Oh God,” Cas said faintly.

“Yeah, he kind of made some assumptions about our relationship that I didn’t feel like - you know - ‘straightening’ him out about.”

Cas coughed, and the cough turned into a giggle. “You got… you got mistaken for my boyfriend?”

“Hey, at least you’re good-looking,” Dean said. “I have my standards, you know.”

“Um,” Cas said. _Telling a rape victim he’s good-looking? Dean’s a piece of work._

“I did it again, didn’t I,” Dean said, but Cas still looked a little more cheerful than he had.

Cas said, “Let’s change the subject.”

“Eggs and toast?” Dean said helpfully.

“Since you won’t stop offering food until I eat, sure,” Cas said.

“Maybe we can pick up some comfort food for you,” Dean said.

Cas got a sudden mental image of Dean feeding him grapes like a momma bird, or spooning mac and cheese into his mouth, and that little smile showed up again. “Aha!” Dean said. “So there _is_ something I can tempt you with.”

“Eggs and toast is fine for now.” He watched Dean assemble his late lunch and thought to himself that even if Dean was one of the crudest and most pyrotechnically spontaneous individuals he’d ever met, he was also one of the kindest and most practical, and that was really what he needed in a friend right now.

Dean presented the pale blue box with the medication in it to Cas at the end of his meal.

“Would Monsieur like an apéritif?” Dean said, trying to sound like a sommelier.

Cas put his face in his hands and giggled again. He dropped them and tried to get into the spirit of things. “Was it a good year?” he said, straight-faced.

“We strive to ensure that all of our wines are of consistently excellent quality,” Dean said.

“Well, you got the snootiness down pat,” Cas said.

Dean dropped the act, and said, “I’m a PI, and that means I’m a student of human nature. And there’s a lot of human nature to study, that’s for damned sure.”

Cas took his medication. There was no getting past Dean, when he had his mind set on something. He’d known him less than two days and he could take that to the bank.

Which was where they were going next. Dean said, “And now that’s over with, let’s see if we can get your banking unsnarled.”

Dean’s phone chimed a text message.

“Woo-hoo!” he said, checking it. “Got another errand, Mrs. P cut me a check and I can go pick it up.”

Cas frowned. “Is that usual? Don’t they just mail it to you?”

“Yeah, but she’s fifty-five if she’s a day and I think she just wants one last chance to pinch my cheeks and tell me how cute I am.” Dean waggled his eyebrows and showed all his teeth without opening his jaw.

He _was_ cute, and he knew it too, the skunk. “Seriously?”

“Wish I was lyin’, like her husband, who was hiding a whole second family from her for the last fifteen years….and now you’re pissed off at me because I said something confidential about a client.”

“No, although I suppose I should be,” Cas said. “Of course if you hired me to be your assistant in exchange for room and board you could tell me all about your day and it would be covered by the confidentiality agreement.”

“God, I can just see Sammy’s face if I did that,” Dean said, surprising Cas by not instantly rejecting the idea. “‘Bout forty percent of my business is through his law firm.”

“Oh,” Cas said.

“And thanks for the offer, but unless I have a particular requirement I work alone.”

“I understand, I was joking.”

“Well, hold the thought. If you’re serious you can always help keep me awake during a stakeout.”

“That might be interesting,” Cas said.

“Aw no, man, it’s boring as fuck,” Dean said, with a laugh, “But you can pass out in the back if you can’t stay awake.”

“It’s a thought,” Cas said.

“Ready for the errands?” Dean said. “Here we go!”

On the way out the door he said, “You should probably have a jacket –“ and Cas said, “Don’t buy me one,” in an anxious voice, and Dean said, “Naw, just grab one of my spares. It’ll be a bit loose on you, but it’s cool in the shade –“

“And you get off on fussing,” Cas said, and then wished he hadn’t.

Dean’s face went blank. Cas realized that once again, an apology was in order. He kept saying things to antagonize Dean, and had no idea where it was coming from.

His mouth stern, his eyebrows raised in what felt like a challenge, Dean said, “Yeah, I’m a mother hen, absolutely. Now be a good little chicken and put a goddamned jacket on so I have one fewer thing to worry about.”

Cas put on the jeans jacket and shut up. Within a few minutes he wished he hadn’t.

The jacket smelled of Dean and, ever so faintly, of cologne.

On the ride to the bank, Dean caught him lifting the lapel and sniffing at the jacket and said, “What, is there ketchup on it or somethin’?”

Embarrassment bubbled up in Cas’s rib cage, and he said, “No, I was trying to identify the cologne.”

“I don’t wear it any more. Makes it easier to tell if you’ve been someplace, and a lot of the time I don’t want anybody to know.”

 _Better than saying I can smell you on it and you smell very… attractive. Especially since you seem to be the straightest man alive. Although now I think of it I could probably tell you you’re hot and you’d just say, ‘I know’ like Han Solo._ Castiel smiled to himself. “That seems like a smart move.”

“Only kind I make,” Dean said. He was a master at making smug remarks like that.

“You would have been smarter dropping me off at the hospital and leaving me to my own devices,” Cas said, without thinking.

Dean gave a hollow laugh. “Right, so I could lie awake worrying about what the hell happened to you. I don’t expect storybook endings in my business, in fact it’s a red letter day when I get one, but I expect answers, at least. And quit trying to goad me like that, it’s like you want me to throw you out or something. You’re a person who needs help, and I’ve got it to give, and while I’m not expecting you to bob a curtsey and sing a morning song of praise, maybe you can quit the shit talk.”

“I’m sorry.”

Dean splayed a hand, and shot him a quick glance. “It’s all about you establishing boundaries, I get that. Sam says I don’t have any until they’re _my_ idea,” Dean said.

“You and your brother seem really close.”

“Some people think it’s creepy. We’ve been accused of having an incestuous relationship. Good thing Jess thinks it’s so funny.” Dean screwed up his lips so that for a second he looked like Kermit the Frog, and Cas, despite himself, snickered. It was almost impossible to feel gloomy when Dean was around. There was a little breath of cologne from the jacket, and Cas settled into his seat without further comment.

The bank was not much fun. Just walking into the bank meant leaning on Dean the entire way. Cas got a temporary bank card and learned that all the money was gone from his checking account, so he filed a claim and was told to go get a police file number for the theft.

While they were at the station house, Cas talked to the sketch artist and Dean, who seemed to be on speaking terms with every emergency services worker in town, had a private conversation with the policewoman who’d taken his info, a brief and apparently useful one; he’d handed over the list of shops his assailant had spent money at and was apparently going to be allowed to look at any video they obtained as a professional courtesy, which struck Cas as not totally legal, but he didn’t complain.

Dean’s energy level seemed freakish. As soon as one item came off the list, he attacked the next one.

Dean said, “C’mon with me to pick up the check, or I’ll be there all frickin’ day wiping her drool offa me.”

Mrs. P answered her door expecting Dean to be alone. When she saw Cas, her expression changed so rapidly into disappointment and irritation that Cas almost laughed. She covered it swiftly and invited them in.

“My associate, Cas Novak,” Dean said smoothly.

“I thought you worked alone?” Mrs. P. said, going to an elaborate roll top desk to get the check.

“Dean’s being too kind,” Cas said. He was okay standing, but walking hurt like hell. “I’m thinking of changing careers and he’s letting me intern with him for a while.”

“What do you do now?” she asked.

“I design store-front and in-store displays for a third-party merchandizer,” Cas said. “It’s a lot of work up ladders and hauling boxes around, so it’s about fifty-fifty designing something on the computer and trying not to kill myself getting the angel on the Christmas tree.” He smiled self-deprecatingly.

“And what’s Dean here going to have you doing?”

“I’ve got about fifteen hours of security footage to review,” Cas said, thinking fast.

“Good times,” Dean said. He winked at Cas, with his back turned to Mrs. P.

“What kind of a case, if you don’t mind me asking,” Mrs. P. asked.

Dean did mind, but knew he had to feed the beast; referrals brought a lot of business.He took over the response, and said in a gravelly voice. “Theft, fraud, first degree kidnapping, sexual assault and when we help the cops find out where he’s holed up there’ll likely be other charges as well.”

“My goodness, that seems a little more than a private investigator would normally do,” Mrs. P. said.

Cas gloved that ground ball without effort. “I’ve learned that Dean’s very, very motivated to do a good job for his clients,” he said. Dean pressed his lips together and managed to nod sagely.

“Well, thank you very much for helping me with finding all that information for my lawyer. I don’t know where I’d be without your able assistance.”

She looked at him and said, “Are you completely recovered from your stay in hospital?”

“Completely,” Dean said.

Cas thought, _what?_

She held Dean’s hand a long time as she shook it, and Dean smiled.

Dean waited until they were down the walkway and standing out by the car before he unthinkingly gave Cas an affectionate cuff on the shoulder. “There’s some things I _won’t_ do for my clients,” he chuckled.

Cas winced; Dean had connected with a portion of his shoulder that hurt pretty much continuously. Dean’s expression immediately changed from hilarity to concern. “Shit, man, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said.

“It’s okay, I was more startled than hurt,” Cas said, lying.

“And now the Wound Clinic,” Dean said. “You’ve spent enough time following me around and I probably made you start bleeding again.”

They changed all the bandages at the Clinic. Dean sat in so he could do it at home in future. The hard, emotionless expression on Dean’s face as they rolled out fresh dressings scared Cas, as if he was assessing him like an object.

The reason for the hard face soon became obvious. When they got back out to the car, Dean said, “I’m really, really sorry I hit you.That was inconsiderate and boneheaded and I’m going to try to keep a lot better track of where you’re hurt in future.”

“Dean, it’s okay, I know it wasn’t malicious.”

“You’re not mad.”

“No, I forgive you, if you need to hear it.”

Dean sighed with relief and promptly changed the subject.

Dean leaned against his car and scanned him. “Were you serious about the surveillance video? I can get you set up on it. Something you should know, though, if you see that asshole’s face you’re going to seize up like a rusty bolt.”

“You mean – “

Dean said, “I mean it’ll be emotional. There’s no guarantee he didn’t send a stooge in to buy stuff on the stolen card, but either way today’s probably a good day to be stoic about it.”

Cas said, in his lowest register, “I can do stoic.”

There was that little grin. Grim Dean was scary. Grinning Dean was adorable. “I noticed. You wanna go to the second hand store and get yourself a jacket? You can add it to the list for reimbursement.”

“No, thanks,” Cas said. He was enjoying wearing Dean’s jacket, although you could have poked him with a fork before he’d admit it. Dean was standing really close to him and looking at him like he was trying to read his mind.

Then he said, in a slow, considering tone, “I don’t like your color. I’ll run you home and you can either look at the video – if it’s shown up in my inbox yet – or take a nap.”

Cas was emotionally touchy, and tired, and sore, and pretending _not_ to be all of those things had taken it out of him. He nodded and listened to Dean burble on about one thing and another and said, as soon as he hung up his borrowed jacket, “I’m going to rest, like you suggested.”

“What can I tempt you with for dinner?” Dean said.

“Pizza, anything but hot peppers or anchovies, and less meat by preference,” Cas said promptly. He might as well speak up, since Dean was insistent on keeping him fed.

“But double cheese, right?” Dean asked, as if the fate of the world hinged on his response.

“Yes, Dean, double cheese.” Honestly, Dean _was_ a grade-schooler in a grown man’s body.

For a fraction of a second he pictured him being as wildly gung ho about sex as he was about everything else, with his stupendous energy level, and Cas felt his heart skip. Intellectually he knew Dean was a good-looking guy, maybe even the best-looking guy he’d ever met who wasn’t a celebrity, but he didn’t want to go there. He’d spent far too much of his life mooning over guys who weren’t interested in him.

He went there anyway. He was, as they say, already gone.

On the ride home, he had viewed Dean’s chiselled profile and saw how the curve of his nose and his upper lip lined up like something in a painting. He saw the spangle of freckles on his cheeks and the plump lower lip, the little strip of hair that fell across his forehead, the firm chin and the simmering jawline. He watched his hands as he drove, square and competent and strong, and remembered those hands had covered him and carried him and protected him. He watched how Dean’s mobile face flew into irritation at another driver, amusement at a sign in front of a diner or concern for him, glancing sideways, saying, “I was right, wasn’t I, you’re quiet ‘cause we overdid it.”

“Yeah,” Cas said, “I think maybe I did.” He looked out the passenger side window. If Dean turned and looked at him again, it might not be wise to be looking like somebody putting the finishing touches on a major crush.

Cas went straight to his bed when he got home, but sleep did not come quickly.

When he woke up from his nap, there was pizza. There was also very gooey Caesar salad, causing Dean to say, “Is this dressing, or a quart of elephant jizz?”

“I’m trying to eat, Dean, for chrissakes,” Cas said in disgust. “The whole point was to try to tempt me to eat, not make me flee to the bathroom to hurl.”

“I keep forgetting how insensitive I am,” Dean said. He waggled his eyebrows. “It’s one of the problems created by how insensitive I am.”

“But I _know_ you’re not insensitive,” Cas said. He jabbed a fork into the salad and forced himself to eat a bite. It was delicious, and the romaine was almost combatively crisp. Since Dean had no problems with talking with his mouth full, he decided to see how he liked it, and so Cas said, around the salad, “You were incredibly sensitive when you took me to hospital, and you bought me all those clothes –“

“Don’t forget the stool softener,” Dean said.

“Oh, for the love of God! You really are five years old.”

“Life never loses its zing when you’re like me,” Dean said with a radiant and innocent smile. “You’re even learning to talk with your mouth full, the Dean Winchester way.”

“Always a quip.”

“I try to have a couple in reserve, ready to go at all times. Of course, there’s always running away or punching people when the quips don’t work, but –“

Cas looked at him.

“I was trying to be funny,” Dean said painfully.

“Oh, whyever are you single, Dean Winchester?” Cas said with heavy sarcasm and a little drawl.

“Me? Why are _you_ single, cutie-pie?”

Cas frowned. The compliment sounded very off-hand. “I asked first.”

“Haven’t met the right person,” Dean said.

“Person.”

“Woman,” Dean corrected. “Now you.”

“Because I may be gay but I’m extremely shy and very monogamous and I loathe dating and this whole hookup culture thing.”

“Oh, I hate dating too,” Dean said, grinning. He leaned back in his chair in another demonstration of his barbaric table manners. “Much prefer fucking - cheaper, faster, no expectations of romance.”

“What’s wrong with romance?” Cas said. He noticed that Dean had stopped eating.

“Apart from being total bullshit? Women are told not to settle for anything but the perfect man, men are told to fight for the woman even if she’s not havin’ any, _everybody_ is lying and as a PI, I get to see every fucking way the romance myth dies. And it’s more or less the same for queer people, just with slightly different social expectations.”

“So, how did the romance myth die for you?”

Dean considered it. It was a personal question, but not really an offensive one. “For me? The last time was a fuckin’ classic. So – I pull up to my girlfriend’s house and as I’m coming up the walkway I can hear her side of a phone call with - I dunno, her sister I think - and she’s saying, ‘We haven’t talked about it but I’m sure I can get him to convert,’ and honest to god, my blood ran cold. I’m like, ‘We’re done here’ and booked it.”

“How long –“

“Six months. We’d been dating for six months. I ask about religion a lot earlier now, or I would, if I was dating.”

“So you’re going the friends with benefits route,” Cas said idly.

“I’m not lying to _anyone_ , and I use safes, no exceptions, and those who don’t like it can kiss my ass,” Dean said flatly.

His expression changed. Softened, became more thoughtful.

“Do you think you’re going to need counselling after – what happened?”

Cas grimly continued to eat. And talk while he ate. It felt weird, like he expected his drunken asshole father to rise from his grave and clobber him at the table to punish him for talking with his mouth full. “I don’t see how I’ll be able to afford it, at least for the next little while.”

“There’s a men’s support group for sexual assault survivors in town. I can get you the details if you want.”

“How do you know about it?”

“The ER doc was a font of information,” Dean said. “He was really, really worried about you. And Sam reminded me about it earlier.”

“Think I need it?” Cas said. He reached for a slice of pizza.

“Who cares what I think?” Dean asked, almost churlishly. “It’s for you, not me.”

“I’ll look at the info,” Cas said cautiously. Dean wolfed down the rest of his food, got on the laptop, and snickered, “Yahtzee!” as he started downloading the security footage.

“If you want to start looking through the footage at the mag shop I got it lined up for you,” Dean said. He tidied the kitchen, loaded the dishwasher, grabbed a can of Pepsi and collapsed in front of the TV.

It was like watching a mashup of Blue Steel moves with the cartoon version of a Tasmanian Devil.

Cas went back to his room and checked out dates for the support group on their website. The next meeting was in two days, and pretty much on the other side of town, so without a lift he’d be unlikely to get there. His heart started to pound. He wanted, so badly, to ask Dean to come with him, but as supportive as Dean was being, in his own weirdly regressive but sweet-tempered way, that seemed a bit much.

“Feel like joining me for some surveillance?” Dean asked, when Cas emerged from his room and sat on the other end of the sectional. “Or you at home for the evening?”

Cas didn’t answer the question. “I think you’re right, I should probably go to the support group. Can you give me a lift a couple of nights from now?”

“Don’t see why not.” He turned off the college basketball he’d been watching. Cas had no way of knowing that it was a classic game from four years earlier.

“You don’t have to stop,” Cas said. He got up to leave.

“We could try some radical new idea like figuring out what we could both watch.”

“I don’t really watch much TV.”

“What about movies?” Dean said, a little smile playing around his mouth.

“I don’t go out to movies much, or basically, at all.”

In rapidfire succession, Dean named off his favourite movies. With two exceptions, The Abyss and Das Boot (“noticing a trend there, Cas”) Cas hadn’t seen any of them.

“Holy shit,” Dean said. “This is perfect. _I’m_ gonna make popcorn and _you’re_ going to start watching Die Hard.”

“I’m not really a fan of violence.”

Dean, forgetting that Cas was recovering from a brutal assault, was oblivious. “It’s _cartoon_ violence. It’s a very well-crafted movie, it’s the flick that made Bruce Willis a star, and Alan Rickman is one of the best goddamned scenery-chewing villains of all time,” Dean said, waving around the popcorn jar in a way that was going to make a dangerous mess if he accidentally hit something with it.

Cas managed to stay awake through the whole thing, and admitted at the end that it had been quite entertaining, and that he now understood a few more cultural references than he had at the start of the evening.

“I thought you had to do surveillance,” Cas said as the credits rolled.

“Yeah,” Dean said. He had a burly multi-function watch, and consulted it. “If she holds to her pattern, she’ll be leaving her salami salesman’s house in about half an hour. You can still join me, I won’t be there all night.”

“Sure, why not,” Cas said.

 

He was being shaken awake. “Hey sleepyhead,” Dean’s voice said softly. “You whistle when you snore – like a baby bird.”

Cas sat up, feeling both embarrassed and confused. The top of his head had been touching Dean’s shoulder. They were sitting in the driveway back at Dean’s place.

“So I slept through the whole exciting surveillance scene?”

“You still made yourself useful. Somebody came up to the car and nearly blew my cover, but you were sitting so close I just turned my head and pretended to be making out with you and they took off like we had plague or something.”

“Pretended - “

“Yes, pretended! You just got assaulted so this is probably triggery as shit for you but I didn’t _do_ anything and seriously, you make the most adorable snoring sounds I’ve ever heard. Like a million-hits-on-Youtube-worthy.”

Cas knew that Dean was teasing him, but didn’t let it go. “You’re not digging yourself out of this hole anytime soon.”

“Well you’re not getting an apology. I get the job done, and if I have to pretend to like Pokémon or punk rock or postage stamps - “

“Or kissing boys,” Cas interrupted.

It was all water off Dean’s back. “Men, please,” he said, “I don’t do children.”

“What?”

“You haven’t figured it out, have you.”

“Figured what out?”

“I’m bi.”

“ _What_?”

“Why is it such a big surprise?” Dean said.

Cas closed his mouth and got out of the car. Dean followed suit.

“Oh I dunno,” Cas said, as he limped along. “You just seem like the world’s straightest guy, to me. The clothes, the hair, the car, the job, the way your house is decorated, maybe that’s what threw me off.”

“Does it matter?” Dean asked.

“That you’re bi, no,” Cas lied. “And it shouldn’t. I’m just feeling sorry for myself because my gaydar’s broken. I’m either crushing on straight guys or getting laughed at for being a prude by other gay men, and I’m fucking tired of it. But it’s no surprise, me completely missing that another man is bi.”

And almost for sure Dean was into other butch men, and butch was not a label that _ever_ got pinned on Cas. Instantly Cas decided that his nascent crush had to go back into ‘the box at the bottom of the closet’. It was almost a relief. He didn’t have to hide his orientation, just the fact that Dean Winchester was rapidly becoming the hottest man he’d ever fallen asleep on, with any other hijinks now very unlikely.

He had to act like nothing had changed, or it was going to get very embarrassing very fast for both of them.

“Well, I am bi. Sorry to be messing with your stereotypes,” Dean said. He unlocked his door.

“I think I’m the one with the problem, Dean,” Cas said. “I’ll have to do some thinking about that.” He went straight to his room, and listened to Dean run a very long shower on the other side of his bedroom wall.

 

Dean was up and out before dawn. He turned up around lunchtime to ensure that Cas had eaten something, and came back at supper time with Chinese takeout (all vegetarian, except the chow mein.)

He hardly spoke two words to Cas until after supper.

“Sam and Jess and Charlie and I and a couple of other people normally do a board game thing on Saturday night. Wanna join us?”

“Who’s hosting?”

“Tonight? Charlie. Don’t worry, Charlie won’t mind.”

Every bruise shouted for his attention. “I really don’t feel up to it.”

“You can sit in a corner and read a book if you want to.”

Cas smiled at Dean. “Thank you so much for including me, but I’m feeling kind of droopy, so do you mind if I pass?”

“No problem,” Dean said shortly. A minute later he could hear the front door slam and the rattle of keys.

 

Left to himself, he took painkillers and drank a lot of water and went to bed.The water meant he’d be up around two, but at least his feet were doing better. The painkillers made him loopy, but didn’t put him out of it enough to let him sleep, and where things were starting to heal he was itchy. And he couldn’t stop thinking about Dean, when he could suppress the horror show that was his body between his neck and his navel. His assailant had confined his attentions to that part of his body, who knew why.

Dean said he’d hurt the bastard, if he caught him. Right now, in his pain, Cas thought that was a damned good idea. He knew, as a light breeze of an idea blowing through his mind, that he might feel differently when he had recovered, but sometimes that anger was _life_ , and Dean had understood that.

Dean saw his anger for what it was, and shrugged it off. Cas didn’t have a lot of experience with men who behaved like that; his father and brothers had all been touchy and prideful; their anger reverberated through the house he’d grown up in until the day his parents had driven off and never come back from the accident that took them both. He was fifteen and the baby of the family, his mother’s favorite and punished by his brothers for it. Without his mother to protect him, his life went from tolerable to nightmarish in the blink of an eye.

He could feel his body vibrating with pain, but for the moment, he wasn’t disturbed by it. Most of the time the pain made it hard to think and talk, although Dean could briefly distract him from it long enough that he could remember how to laugh.

The cloud came back. This little respite from hell was _temporary_. He needed to collect up all his documents and find out the test results and whether he was going to be taking the little blue pill for HIV for the rest of his life, or was going to have his liver destroyed by hepatitis.

Then he needed to get out of Dean Winchester’s perfectly gelled hair.

If he stayed, he would have to ignore his attraction, and while he was too damaged at the moment to do anything, in another couple of weeks…. Well, what? What did he plan to do? Tell Dean he was interested? Not until the tests came back, anyway. And if he did, what would Dean do?

 _Be chivalrous, probably._ ‘You’ve just had something horrible happen to you, you’re in a super emotional state, I wouldn’t take advantage of you.’

 _Be horrified._ ‘Yeah, I’m perfectly happy to let you crash here as long as you’re a needy stray, but once you’re on your feet again, move along!’

_Jump on me, maybe. And then what? Try to find something to kiss that wasn’t covered in another man’s bite marks?_

In spite of himself, he shivered in disgust. He didn’t hate his body, he loved it and tried to take care of it, but right now it was a pitiable, loathsome object.

 _You’re cute, but you’re not really my speed._ He could hear Dean saying that, while thinking to himself that the bite marks were a bit much. _He said cutie-pie._

_Maybe I could have sex with my clothes on, or entirely in the dark, for the rest of my life, forever. It’s not like sex has ever been anything but awkward for me anyway._

 

_Right._

 

The pain began to intrude again, and he was spared further embarrassing thoughts of how even if he showed any interest, Dean would reject him. Not because he hated him or didn’t think he was cute. Just that he wasn’t what he wanted, or - more likely, given his rambunctious style - what he needed.

 

 _Put one sore and stumbling foot in front of another,_ he thought, _that’s all I need to do._

He heard Dean return to the house, and slept.

 

The next morning he was awake before Dean, and made coffee. As soon as the scent filled the house, Dean was up, looking cheerful and energetic.

“Morning sunshine!” he said.

“Good morning,” Cas said.

“Hope you slept okay. Are you going to need your dressings looked at today?”

“I don’t know if need is quite the right word, but, yeah, probably,” Cas said. His heart kicked up into higher gear, not just because of the coffee. To change his dressings, Dean would have to touch him. And he’d have to sit still and go into meditation mode while he was doing it.

“Well, I’ll put bandages on the list for today. You up for doing a grocery shop? I love takeout with all the love my gristly heart can give it,” and here Dean patted his chest, “but my waistline tells me to eat at home.”

A sly expression came over Dean’s face. “You don’t cook, do you?”

“I’ve been living by myself, more or less, for fifteen years, Dean, yes, of course I cook.”

“You wouldn’t …. bake, would you?”

Cas played along. Sometimes that could be fun. “You just said something about your waistline, so I’m not sure I understand what’s happening here.”

Dean smoothed his expression to one of calm enquiry. “Simple question; Cas, do you bake?”

“I’ve been known to make Christmas cookies to take in to work, Dean, but no, I do not bake. Can I assume this has something to do with … pie?”

It was a good guess. “Well, you complained about the last one; it _was_ damned gooey. I figured you could do better,” Dean said.

“I almost certainly could, but I’d be willing to bet you don’t have the equipment,” Cas said.

“There’s nothing wrong with my equipment,” Dean said suggestively.

“And how did I know you’d go there,” Cas said, shaking his head. He almost laughed. “I’m talking a rolling pin and a pie plate, which I think, apart from the ingredients, is all I’d need.”

“I have both.”

“Really? Did you buy them thinking you’d make pie and then never got around to it?”

“Charlie bought pie-making gear as a gag birthday present a couple of years back and I never got around to using it.”

“Well, then. I guess we should put pie filling, lard and the right kind of flour on the shopping list.”

“Lard?” Dean asked, scandalized.

“It is superior,” Cas said, drily.

“Can we get vegetable shortening ‘cause I think if I bought lard and Sam found out about it I’d never hear the fuckin’ end of it.”

“Why don’t we get both and do a side by side comparison,” Cas suggested.

Dean’s eyes lit up.

“That,” he said, reaching for a pencil and a lined pad of paper, “Is an amazing idea. Because,” he said, pointing the eraser at Cas across the table, “The implication is that there will be _twice as much pie_.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody who enjoys life quite the way you do,” Cas said.

Dean shrugged. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Now, what do you like to eat?”

Cas sniffed, to cover wanting to say, “You.” Dean was looking particularly tasty in a skin tight hunter green tee with a matching plaid shirt. “I eat pretty much anything.”

“Not in my experience,” Dean said. “Ya gotta eat, and so think about your favourite meals and we’ll figure it out from there.”

“Spaghetti bolognese?” Cas said.

“Sounds good.” Dean wrote down ‘ground chuck’. “I think we have a couple of packs of spaghetti noodles in the kitchen somewhere.”

Hugging the ‘we’ to himself, Cas said, “Schnitzel.”

Dean looked up from the list with glowing eyes. “Fuck, you’re kidding.”

“Fuck, I’m not,” Cas said. Dean was a sweary creature. It was all part of his manly manliness, so Cas decided a little stab at that might be amusing.

“You _make_ schnitzel?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, with potatoes and rice and greek salad.”

“Jesus. You cook that for yourself?” Dean sounded almost reverent.

“Schnitzel’s not hard, seriously, Dean,” Cas said. “But you need one of those meat pounder things…” at which point Dean started to laugh rather hard.

“A meat pounder thing… definitely got to have one of those,” Dean said. Still laughing, he got up and looked through the kitchen drawers.

“It’s actually called a meat tenderizer,” Cas said faintly.

Dean yelled “Aha!” and brandished the meat tenderizer he found in the second cutlery drawer. “From now on this object is gonna be called ‘the meat pounder thing’ because that is just too fucking funny.”

“So now that you’ve had your sophomoric little joke, I need to ask the question, what do you want schnitzelized?”

“The fucker who hurt you, for starters, but I suppose … what _is_ schnitzel, anyway?”

“Traditionally pork,” Cas said, and was not disappointed by Dean’s juvenile response.

Dean said, “So we’re gonna pork the meat pounder thing, sounds good to me.” He took his seat and wrote ‘pig’ on the shopping list. Cas shook his head.

“But you can also make chicken schnitzel. And, please don’t,” Cas said. He already knew it was pointless.

“Don’t say that we’ll be subjecting the cock to the meat pounder thing? Why would I pass up an opportunity to say that?” Dean asked, and put chicken on the list.

“Oh, and by the way,” Dean said, “My chest freezer is pretty much empty, so if you want to load up on stuff today would be the day to do it.”

“Okay,” Cas said. “Chili,” he said. “I put kidney beans and chickpeas and carrots and onions and tinned tomatoes in mine,” and Dean said, “I got tinned tomatoes.” He wrote the rest of the items down. He had handwriting like a small child.

“And I bet you don’t have enough tex-mex seasoning,” Cas said.

Dean put it on the list.

“I make a veggie salad with parsley and cilantro and white kidney beans and trail mix and garlic,” Cas said. “It keeps for most of a week in the fridge and it’s light but nourishing.” Dean passed him the list and he wrote everything down. He liked walnuts in it too, so he added that to the list.

“What kind of bread do you like?” Dean asked. He seemed relieved to have handed off scribe duty to Cas.

“Wholemeal. Can we get whole wheat muffins? Home made egg and cheese muffins are tasty, I make mine with mild salsa. Do you have salsa?”

Dean shook his head. Cas added the items to the list.

Cas looked up, and Dean had a strange expression on his face.

“What?” Cas said.

“Ice cream?” Dean asked hopefully.

“What kind of question is _that_? Of course I like ice cream! I suspect our difficulty will be on agreeing on a flavor.”

“I suspect you’re right.”

“I am putting vanilla ice cream on this list,” Cas said, in a challenging voice. He scowled at Dean.

“I call your vanilla ice cream and raise you one carton of double fudge ripple,” Dean said, narrowing his eyes.

“I believe the warring parties have achieved a compromise,” Cas said, and dutifully wrote it down.

“Spuds,” Dean said. “I think the last bag went funky,” he added. “And I definitely know I threw out the onions, I thought something had fuckin’ died in the kitchen.”

“Hm. We should prob’ly clean out the fridge before we shop,” Cas said.

“I hate that part. I always feel like such a douche when I throw out food.”

“It’s no fun,” Cas agreed. “You eat soup? Some people aren’t fans.”

“What, like homemade? Like homemade chicken soup?” Dean got that hungry glow to him again.He was just a big kid, with big enthusiasms, and food was definitely one of them.

“Dean, soup is not hard, you throw veggies in a pot and come back two hours later and it’s food.”

“It’s the prep that’s the buzzkill.”

“It’s wonderful. It’s very calming, I like it.”

Dean threw up his hands, “Have at ‘er!” he said.

Cas added soup ingredients to the list. “For the spices I’ll get small quantities from the bulk section and then you won’t get stuck with expensive spice jars that you’re not likely to use.”

“Right,” Dean said non-committally.

“How about you? What do you like to eat?”

“Food other people cooked,” Dean said cheerfully. “Waffles with syrup, grits with cheese, french toast, bacon and eggs!”

“How about oatmeal or granola for breakfast instead?” Cas said. “Easier on the cook and better for you.”

“You’re no fun,” Dean said, with mock sulkiness.

“You probably won’t be the last person to say that to me,” Cas agreed, sniffing. “I bet if you do have oatmeal in the house it’s so stale it’s got weevils.”

“I bet if I had oatmeal in the house it would be in sugary little packets,” Dean said.

“Would you eat it?”

“No,” Dean promptly supplied.

“Fine, I’ll get a small package of oatmeal for me, and you can feed the leftovers to the birds when I leave,” Cas said, and added it to the list.

“About that,” Dean said.

“Yes,” Cas said. They looked at each other.

“When were you planning on pulling the pin?” Dean said.

“With your permission, I’d like to stay until my bloodwork comes back.”

“Yeesh,” Dean said. It wasn’t said in a mean way. The tone was sympathetic.

“Yeah, I wish I didn’t have that hanging over my head. I tell myself not to borrow trouble, but the thing is, Dean, my luck’s been so atrocious the last couple of years I figure I need to just… take cover here until I know for sure. And it’s going to be another couple of weeks before I’m able to walk around and move my shoulder properly, and even if I look after myself there’s always the chance I’ll get an infection, and so –“

“Stay as long as you need to, buddy,” Dean said.

“It’s probably going to be at least three weeks,” Cas warned.

“S’okay,” Dean said. He shrugged. “Food,” he said, and pointed to the grocery list.

“I don’t know if I’m actually going to be able to do all the walking involved,” Cas said.

“Feet still hurt, hunh?” Dean asked.

“I’m okay walking around the house, but the steps really add up when you’re shopping.”

“I think the store has a couple of electric scooters,” Dean said. “Or I can go.”

“I need to get out of the house,” Cas said.

“You could have come last night,” Dean said, rolling his eyes.

“How was it?”

“Laughed really hard,” Dean said reminiscently. “We played Cards Against Humanity, which is kind of an ‘everyone’s a winner game’ and a couple of rounds of Munchkin, and for that part I kicked Sam’s ass, which is all I ever care about.”

“I’ve heard of Cards Against Humanity. What’s Munchkin?”

“Another card game, but I ain’t explainin’ it,” Dean said. “I’m hosting in two weeks so you can pick it up then.”

“It’s good clean fun then,” Cas said, trying to get a feel for it.

“Man, there’s no way you can call Cards Against Humanity good clean fun, but Munchkin’s pretty family friendly.”

“And you’re hosting in two weeks,” Cas said.

“Which means you’re hosting, too,” Dean said, “If you’re here for another three.”

“Dean, it isn’t my house,” Cas reminded him.

“Yeah, technically you’re right, but you can _treat_ it like it’s yours.”

“What, now I can move furniture?” Cas asked drily. There wasn’t anything wrong with the layout, mind you, but it was the first thing that came into his head, and if you didn’t talk fast with Dean, you’d get left behind.

Dean looked perplexed. “You can’t move furniture, you say your shoulder’s too messed up.”

“You’re right, I couldn’t. I can’t do housework yet but with God’s help I’m going to work my way up to baking any day now.”

“Housework?” Dean said. His timbre had risen at least half an octave.

“Basics. Trash.” Cas said briefly.

“So I guess a deep clean is out of the question,” Dean said, voice reverting to its normal range.

Cas sighed. “I don’t understand how you think that’s funny. To return to our subject, exactly what it is that you’re expecting me to do when games night happens?”

Dean pulled a face. Mouth open, eyes narrowed, he looked as if he was disgusted with himself for thinking something stupid.

Then he cleared his throat, and said, “Expecting? Uh, I’m expecting you to hide in your room. What I’m hoping will happen is you’ll join us and get a break from dealing with me all the time by hanging around with people who tease the living shit out of me.”

Cas said, with polite disbelief, “So you have _some_ idea how difficult you are, you just can’t _control_ yourself.” A lifetime of cutting himself down to suit others seemed now to have been a waste of his precious compliance - and his time.

“I can if I have a good enough reason to,” Dean said. “I know I’m an asshole, but certain things - I should say people - in my life – they prevent me from continuously _behaving_ like one.”

“Sam.”

“Yes. I love him and trust him more than anyone in the world. When he tells me I’m fucking up I gotta listen.”

“If he were here now I hope he’d be sensible enough to see my point on this,” Cas said. “Do you believe in self-improvement, or are you like Mary Poppins, and practically perfect in every way?”

Dean’s eyes bugged out and he jumped to his feet. “You fucker. I just quit drinking! You want self-restraint and self-improvement, you can jam that up your ass!”

Cas looked so woebegone that Dean felt terrible, and then a mask fell over Cas’s face and he looked coolly thoughtful instead.

Dean put the backs of his thumbs to his eyes, pushed a little and dropped his hands. He said, “God, that was even worse than the biting comment. Yeah, my temper and self-control are kinda fucked up right now.”

“And in this emotional state you take in a stray?” Cas said, in the same thoughtful voice.

With less volume and more bite, Dean said, “Fuck you! I had no control over the timing of events and you know it. It’s just - you’re giving me something else to think about. And you’re a person, not a stray animal. I do know that.” He retook his seat.

There was a long pause. They both looked away from each other, then back. Dean looked away first.

“Never saw two men get more emotional about a shopping list,” Cas said.

Dean’s mouth opened. He shook his head and started to laugh.

“Are we done here?” he growled, pretending to be a tv tough guy.

Cas tried as hard as he could. He put his knuckle to the underside of his nose to hide his smile. Dean spotted it though. “So you do have a sense of humor.”

“I grew one in self-defence after I met you,” Cas said. He’d spent his whole life cultivating an expression of careful interest, might as well use it as a force for good. In a gravelly voice he said, “Never had one before. Never needed it.”

“Horseshit,” Dean said, sounding relaxed again. “I’m going to eat something, I can’t go shopping like this. You keep adding items to the list; I’m raiding the freezer for Eggos.” He ducked around the corner and there was the soft ‘whoomp’ as the freezer lid was opened.

“Oh God,” said Castiel in a deeply troubled voice.

“Did you eat the last one and not tell me.” Cas didn’t hear him close the lid, ergo Dean was staring at the hole where the Eggos used to be.

Silence.

“Cas I swear to God if you ate the last one without telling me, I’m gonna beat your head like a gong.” He still had not closed the freezer. Cas started taking bets with himself.

Weakly, Cas said, “We’re going shopping now, and Eggos is on the list.” Still.had.not.closed.freezer.

“I’m an easy-going guy, Cas,” Dean said.

“Not really,” Cas said.

There was a long pause. “I shouldn’t have threatened you.” The freezer door closed. Cas sighed with relief.

“I didn’t perceive it as a real threat.” Angry with himself, he added, “And for the record, I shouldn’t have said ‘not really,’ I was trying to be funny.”

“I didn’t take it that way,” Dean said carefully, coming back into the room.

 _We sure escalate quickly_ , Cas thought. ‘It’s been a long time since I felt safe enough to be flippant.”

Dean straightened a little, as if pleased, and then went back into the kitchen. “Cereal only for Dean, alas, o woe is me! All because my - hey Cas, what’s a good medieval word for asshole?”

“Miscreant,” Cas said.

“All because my miscreant housemate et the last of my Eggos, not even giving me a chance to yell one of the all-time greatest advertising slogans of my childhood.”

“You know that if you’re not clinically insane, there are long stretches when even a professional would be hard-pressed to tell the difference,” Cas said.

“Goddamn rude thing to say about the mentally ill, not to mention professionals, who wouldn’t have _any_ trouble telling the difference.”

“Ow,” Cas said, acknowledging the hit. Dean liked to pretend he was stupid; it was getting clearer by the minute that he was anything but.

“Well, I hope you learned something,” Dean said in a snooty voice.

“Humility, I’m putting humility on the list,” Cas said in an equally snooty voice.

“You won’t find much at the grocery store, you miscreant,” Dean said.

“I’ll take miscreant over poltroon, you poltroon.”

“Hey, isn’t a poltroon a coward?” Dean asked, twisting around from rummaging in the cupboard to fake glare at Cas.

“Oh, so we have it backward. You’re the miscreant and I’m the poltroon. Works for me,” Cas said.

“You don’t mind if people call you a coward?”

“Why not, if it’s true?” Cas said, with what appeared to Dean to be genuine amusement.

“You’re a coward,” Dean said flatly.

“By my own definition, sure. I’ve survived a _lot_ , but none of it made me _brave_.”

“You seemed pretty brave in the hospital.”

“I’d been drugged.”

“You must think most humans are scumbags,” Dean said after a minute.

Cas considered it. “I think most people are okay. I think somehow I give off a vibe that I’m harmless, and so I’m safe to attack.”

Dean said, in a tentative voice, “It happened before. I saw the marks on your back and between your shoulders.”

There was something about how he said it that encouraged him to speak. “Beatings from my father, mostly, although the worst damage I got from one of my brothers.”

“Hope something good came of it,” Dean said.

“I got away.” Cas laughed without mirth. Then he frowned. “My shoulder really hurts, hurts like a needle’s poking into it.”

“Can we go shopping before we go to the ER?”

“You think I need to go to the ER?” Cas suddenly seemed reluctant.

“Well, suppose you really do have a needle broken off in you because that’s how the asshole subdued you?”

“The doctor didn’t say anything about that.”

“Okay, I’ll phrase it differently. Is it at least worth checking out? You didn’t have an X-ray so the doc might not even know.”

“Ye-es.”

“So now the question is are we going in now or maybe later in the day, two o’clock maybe, when the ER is going to be quieter.”

“How would you know that?”

“I know everything about this town, including when the ER is least likely to be busy.”

“If you know so much, where’s the best gay bar?”

Dean laughed. “What? Funny you should ask, the best one this town ever had just closed. So long, Cover Girl, you were a goddess.” Dean saluted. “I wonder what happened to that amazing neon sign out front, I forgot to ask… anyway the other two that are left are duking it out for the title now. I’m waiting for one of them to settle in for serving the older crowd – not being quite so loud, for starters. But of course, if I’ve really quit drinking for good it won’t matter ‘cause my days of cruising bars are over.”

“Can I ask what made you quit drinking?” Cas said, looking at him with his head tilted to one side. Dean felt weird every time he did that, like he was trying to look into his soul and not really finding one.

“Sure, but you won’t think better of me when you hear why,” Dean said.

“You’re kind of my favorite person at the moment, so for sure I won’t think worse of you.”

“I’m your favorite person?” Dean said, genuinely touched and surprised.

“Don’t get too excited, you have no competition,” Cas said drily.

Dean snapped his fingers in mock dismay.

“So,” he said. “I woke up next to a client one morning, breaking rule #1, got pulled out of a ditch the next night (by Sam, we kept the cops out of it) which was all kinds of stupid on my part, and the night after that Sam phoned and said that Jess was no longer interested in family time if I was drinking. I fucking hate AA - long story - so I did it by myself. And found out you don’t quit drinking cold turkey when you drink as much as me and I had about eight hours of almost dying and Sam saved me. And just for shits and giggles I started sort of eating better and more or less quit picking up women in bars.”

“And how long has it been?” Cas said.

“I’m through the worst of it,” Dean said. He squinted at the calendar on the fridge. “Three weeks two days.”

“Congratulations. I prayed every day that my dad would quit drinking, but only death made that possible.”

“I don’t even have a kid to get straight for, and who knows if I’ll stay on the wagon. At least I know now that I never get to say, ever again, that I didn’t have a drinking problem, because those first three days after I quit nearly killed me.”

There was a long pause.

Cas said, “Can we go to the ER first?”

“Good idea. Give me the list. Am I skipping eating any cereal?”

“No, please eat, I don’t want you hangry.”

“No, you sure don’t.”


	5. Don't Look Like That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas finds out why his shoulder hurts so much. A nightmare finds Cas waking with Dean's arms around him.

After an hour in the ER, a quick trip to X-ray, and another hour waiting for results, a sheepish doctor came out to the waiting area and said, “We didn’t catch the needle stick when you were in here the other night, and there’s about half an inch broken off. Most of the time you wouldn’t feel it, but for certain motions I’m sure that hurt - a lot.”

“So what do we do about it,” Dean said.

Cas made a face at him.

“Endoscopic surgery, and the sooner, the better,” the doctor said.

“Can’t I just run a high powered magnet over him and get it out that way?” Dean said with a straight face.

“Dean!” Cas said, red with embarrassment.

“I think your, ah, friend, is joking,” the doctor said, eyeing Dean with distaste. Cas was aware, as Dean blithely appeared not to be, that the doctor thought Dean was the asshole responsible for the bite marks, which he’d seen a portion of during his exam. “The surgeon will be around to see you in about an hour, but once you’ve seen her you’ll know where you are on her schedule. My advice is to stop drinking anything except clear fluids and stop eating anything, just in case.”

“Great,” Cas said blankly.

“I’ll die before I get the chance to eat Eggos again,” Dean said mournfully.

“If I die during surgery I want you to know my last thoughts were, ‘What a poltroon I am, eating Dean’s last Eggo,’ after you _told_ me I could help myself to anything in the house.”

“I didn’t mean the Eggos,” Dean said, in that especially raspy Batman voice that indicated that he was kidding. In a more sensible tone of voice he said, “And what’s this about dying during surgery? – I thought they were doing the little laser thing under a local.”

“You mean the endoscopic surgery,” Cas said.

“Hey, you’re the one who called a tenderizer a ‘meat-pounding thing’, I’m allowed to get it wrong once in a while,” Dean said.

“I’m recovering from a …”

“Mauling,” Dean suggested. He looked at his phone.

“That works, and I’m wrecked on painkillers. You’re supposedly normal.”

“I’m in recovery from alcohol addiction.”

The urge to slap Dean for his arch tone, saying this, died back as Cas realized that it was not a competition, they were both extremely fucked up, but in a good position to help each other. He lashed out verbally instead.

“And going it alone, like a witless - “

“None of that,” Dean said calmly, as if he were expecting it. “I know now I can’t do it alone. So here’s the deal. Being me and having my life, I just got yoinked out of this situation by a text message, and I’ll be out of here for at least four hours and I think prob’ly six. If everything goes okay you’ll be in the recovery room then, because ain’t no way you’re going in when they said, I looked at the ambulatory care surgical rooms and you’ll be cooling your heels here all day and _don’t_ look like that, I’m leaving you the tablet and it already knows the hospital wifi password. Best place here is the chapel and they actually have places you can stretch out although during the day I wouldn’t advise it. Make ‘em put where you are in the file so you don’t lose your spot when they come for you. And with that, my friend, I gotta go.”

Dean fished a bottle of water out of one of the pockets in his tac vest and the tablet out of another. He handed them over, gave Cas a bracing smile and air-patted his shoulder, and left. In the door he turned, came back and handed over a pair of earbuds, and then he really left for good. He wouldn’t look at Cas.

Cas felt like the universe had quit working for a second. He was thankful for the water and the advice and the promise that he would at least be able to keep himself entertained, but for a moment, all he could feel was utterly lost. He sighed and went looking for the person to advise that he’d be in the chapel.

He was alone. He put the earbuds in so he could listen to the news in silence, and then he thought about poking around in Dean’s private files.

 _“No!”_ said his conscience.

 _“Maybe!”_ said his curiosity.

He realized that it should be okay to look at anything on the desktop, but quickly learned that was not true.

He opened “Downloads” expecting porn, or worse.

It was worse.

The two photos Dean had taken of him the night he found him were close to the top. Cas got to see what Dean had seen, and he gasped. There was a fair amount of blood, but what really freaked him out was seeing the scars from his father’s beatings so stark against his cold white flesh. It was impossible to see himself as attractive to a potential partner, knowing what he would see when the shirt came off.

Cas felt sick. Why was Dean keeping the pictures on his laptop?

At the top of the list of downloads was the security video from the mag shop. A playback program automatically opened as he clicked on the file. _Might as well get some use out of the day,_ he thought, and started watching the video.

He lost track of time. A care aide came to get him for his surgery, and he was too preoccupied to worry about anything as they prepped him. 

The ‘don’t care’ injection did its thing. He was awake for the surgery, which went fine, but he remembered nothing about it. He woke up feeling someone tapping the back of his hand, and said, irritably, “What?”

“Oh, there you are,” Dean said. “I brought you some food.”

“Really?” Cas said, cheering up. He opened his eyes. He was starving. He couldn’t feel his shoulder.

“A chickenburger and a side salad,” Dean said.

“Oh God, I’m in love,” Cas said lightheartedly, and then in a completely different tone of voice said, while sitting up, “The tablet.”

“Relax,” Dean said. “It’s right here.” He had a holster for his gun on the left and a holster for the tablet on the right. ‘What all the modern PIs are wearing!’ Dean would say.

“Dean.”

“Yes, Cas.”

“Why did you take pictures of me?”

Dean frowned, and then got the expression on Cas’s face. “Pictures… oh. Those pictures. Well, for the cops, of course,” Dean said.

“Who never got them. I noticed them on your desktop. Can I ask you to delete them?”

“When we’ve caught the fucker, sure. Until then, I’m kind of using them as motivation.”

 _What? Seriously._ “I’d really prefer if you didn’t keep them.”

“And I won’t, once we’ve caught him.”

Dean and Cas exchanged a look. Cas looked away first. He slowly finished his burger and salad in silence.

“They say you’re ready to go pretty much anytime, so let’s go home,” Dean said.

 _Home_ , Cas thought. “I’m not letting it go, Dean,” Cas said.

“Fine.” Dean narrowed his eyes at him, pulled out the tablet and ostentatiously deleted the pictures.

“Can you understand why I might not want pictures of my naked unconscious body circulating the internet?”

Dean looked very aggrieved. “I’d never do that.”

“That’s not the point. I didn’t give you permission to take those photos, and thank you for deleting them. Now, if you don’t mind, can you delete them from the trash?”

Dean rolled his eyes and complied.

With a self-satisfied air, Cas got ready to go home. _Home_ , he thought again. _What a dangerous idea._

_Home. Where I have to do laundry._

When they got out to the Impala – Dean stuck him in a wheelchair to get him there, because he always parked as far away from everyone else as he could to prevent scratches and parking lot collisions – Cas realized Dean had already done the grocery shopping on the way back from wherever he’d been ‘yoinked’ to. He almost cried, he was so relieved, and when Dean told him not to worry about the bags, he went to his bed to collapse. He could hear Dean singing in the kitchen as he started to nap.

It was dark when he woke up. He felt disoriented and wandered out to the kitchen where he read a note that said, in ominous murderer style handwriting, “I M PI MAN I M PI MAN.” Underneath in his normal printed scrawl, it read, “2 ugly people boning 4 hours & I get to take pics & audio.”

From this Cas deduced that Dean was making some kind of pun about being a P.I. and eating pie, which seemed juvenile even for him, and then Cas realized that when it came to juvenile Dean might not _have_ a lower limit. He wished he didn’t already know that about him. If he wanted to start taking offence, he’d have to lower his standards immediately or drown in his horror. Not having standards at all seemed to be the way to go. Dean was an asshole, and on him it somehow worked. 

Castiel began to wonder if there was anything he could do to be even a little bit more like Dean.

Cas was still awake, looking at the store video, when Dean came in. Dean was trying to be quiet – and Cas suddenly realized he hadn’t heard the Impala.

“I didn’t hear your car.”

“Yeah, I leave Baby at home for a lot of surveillance. ‘Free Bird’ gets to fly instead.”

“What kind of car is it?”

“It’s a crappy old Ford Focus. I keep it in the garage for when I need to have a different car for surveillance. I hate that hunk of junk, but nobody looks twice at it.”

“Whereas if you’re in Baby, you get looked at… which is why you were pretending to neck with me the other night.” Cas got a little thrill every time he thought about that.

“People won’t think you’re cops, especially if you’re two guys; or PIs.”

“You have a cop haircut.”

“I’m not much like a cop in other respects. Did you find anything on the surveillance video?”

“No. The sale was to a different man than picked up me at the fire.”

“Well, we’ve got other options,” Dean said.

“Good, I guess,” Cas said. “I know I’ve asked for too much already, but can I ask for yet another favor?”

“Depends,” Dean said.

“It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“You need your dressings changed?”

“Tomorrow, maybe. I’m having problems with pain relief.” Cas made a face, and then sighed.

“You need to go to the pharmacy?”

“Pot’s legal in this state, so, I was hoping to get some edibles. It’ll kill pain without - well, you brought it up - without binding me.”

Dean’s mouth opened and closed a few times.

“You don’t look like a pot-head.”

“I know from experience that it’s a better pain killer for me. I won’t have to use it for long, hopefully.”

“You want a lift to the pot store?”

“If it’s an issue, I’ll figure something else out,” Castiel said. “It’s after 11, nothing’s open.Maybe you can take me tomorrow.”

“You’re not going to be smoking it, right?” Dean asked with a frown.

“Nope, edibles only,” Cas said. “I’d never smoke in your house, that would be the height of rudeness.”

“Glad we got that straight. I feel weird about it.”

“It’s not legal back home. I feel weird about it, too.”

“Mind if I watch some TV to unwind before I turn in?”

“Dean,” Cas said with the smile that Dean wished would stay longer, “It’s your house. Good night!”

 

His father was bending over him. If he ran fast enough, he could get away. He got up and ran, and the house turned into stairs and tunnels and windows and alleys, but always it turned into his father’s face, yelling and yelling, and his mother in the background, crying but not able to stop it, but if he ran, he could get away. Soon he was falling downstairs. He could smell smoke and woke up.

“Hey buddy,” Cas heard somebody say. There were arms around him. Cas felt a very solid, comforting hug, dodging the sorest spots, and then the arms were gone. “You were screaming.”

“Yeah. The drugs, and the strange bed, and well, I’m completely freaked out,” Cas gasped. He could see Dean’s outline by the nightlight.

“Want me to leave?”

“Um. No,” Cas said.

Dean rearranged himself so he wasn’t within easy reach, but still sitting on the bed.

“I get nightmares,” Cas said.

“Me too. What are yours about?”

“My dad beating me and my mother. I think I’m in the car crash that killed them, even though my mother pushed me out of the car right before they left. My brothers lining up to beat me.”

“Jesus, man.”

“How about yours?”

“My mother dying. Sammy dying. A couple of times I’ve dreamt about starting drinking again, and those are really bad, you may hear me yelling. And my current favorite, I’m on stakeout and somebody’s in the back seat of my car and slits my throat. So if you were wondering why you got an invite to hang out during some surveillance, maybe that had something to do with it.”

“Dean Winchester, scared of the dark?” Cas said. “And here’s me with my heart still pounding. Can you turn the light on?”

“Sure, I’ll let you get settled back down,” Dean said, and got up. He flicked the light switch. For a second, looking at him, blinking against the sudden glare, Cas could have sworn Dean looked disappointed. Whatever glimpse of that feeling vanished into Dean’s smile, and quiet, “Good night.” The door closed behind him.

_I shouldn’t have said anything. Did you put your arms around me or did I imagine that? Are you running away the second the lights come on, as if you can’t imagine … Imagine what, moron?_

Castiel got up and fingered the jacket on the hook on the back of his door. Knowing he was being an idiot, he leaned into it and smelled it.

He heard something shuffling on the other side of his door and straightened.

“You okay in there Cas?”

It was Dean’s house, he could be lurking outside his room if he wanted to.

“I’m fine, I was just thinking about using the washroom.”

“Shit man, don’t let me stop you,” Dean said.

Cas realized he was now committed to using the washroom, and probably seeing Dean again, and this was all now completely awkward and stupid and high school and embarrassing. He skulked out of his room and into the bathroom as quietly and uneventfully as he could, used the toilet, noisily washed his hands and went back to his room. Dean had vanished by the time he came out and Cas wondered gloomily to himself how it was that he could be pushing forty with a broom, and still so fucking clueless about other human beings.

He couldn’t sleep now.

An hour later, he could hear somebody talking, and sat up. It was definitely coming from Dean’s room. He rose and put on his bathrobe, and moved as stealthily as he could toward Dean’s door. The talking turned to yelling, and then to a terrifying, reedy wail that didn’t sound like a human throat could produce it. Whoever could make a noise like that was flat-out wild with fright, and Cas had no compunction about opening Dean’s door.

He turned the light on and said, “Dean!” in a commanding voice.

“What,” Dean said sleepily after a second. “Cas.” He put his hand up to the light and made a face.

“You were having a nightmare.”

“Yeah no shit,” Dean said in an expressionless voice. “Fuck, that one was scary,” he admitted, with feeling

“Want some herbal tea or something? I couldn’t go back to sleep after mine either,” Cas said.

“I’m supposed to offer the herbal tea,” Dean said. Him trying to take command of the situation was rather endearing; he was still breathing a little hard from the nightmare.

“Okay,” Cas said. “Offer away.”

Dean got up, and that’s when Cas got a glimpse of Dean in boxers and a blackwork tattoo on his left breast before he got into his own beat-up maroon velvet dressing gown.

“I have one kind of herbal tea, peppermint. If you want any of the seven hundred other kinds a good host is supposed to have, tough luck,” Dean said.

He filled and switched on the kettle, and sat across from Cas at the kitchen table. He was wearing an expression Cas found hard to interpret. Maybe pissed off, maybe an irked kind of perplexed. But muted.

“I’ve been having a lot of nightmares since I stopped drinking,” Dean said.

“Oh,” Cas said.

“It messes with your sleep when you’re drinking, and it messes with your sleep when you stop.”

“What fixes it?” Cas asked.

“Time. Pretty much. I’ve run through a lot of brain chemicals and I’m paying the price now.”

Cas nodded sadly. “I get nightmares when I’m stressed, running a temperature or in pain. I’m not surprised I had one tonight.”

“I usually try to go back to sleep on the sofa,” Dean said. “When ya wake up screaming the bed just doesn’t seem as comfy right after.”

“I hear you,” Cas said.

They waited at the kitchen table in silence for the water to boil.

“Just sitting here is making me feel sleepy again,” Dean said after a while.

Cas gave a little smile. “You get bored easily.”

“Yes and no,” Dean said. “I do like to move around.”

“You’re one of the most energetic people I ever met,” Cas said agreeably.

Finally the water boiled and Dean poured water for two cups of peppermint tea. As he set Cas’s cup down in front of him, he got a strange expression on his face.

“Did you ever get the feeling your life wasn’t going the way you expected?” Dean asked.

“Did you ever get the feeling that there was no point _expecting_ anything?” Cas said, with maybe a little more emotion than he intended.

Dean sat. He stared intently at Cas. Very slowly, Dean’s left eye moved until it was cross-eyed - his right eye stayed put.

Cas kept a straight face for about seven seconds. Dean’s expression was so ludicrous he could not help but laugh, and the two of them shared a guffaw.

After they stopped laughing, Cas decided to be serious again. “What have we got on for tomorrow, which I think is today?”

Dean’s immediate thought was, _Your clothes being off is what I’d like to have on,_ but he managed to stay professional. Cas was cute, but he was off-limits and hurting from one end to the other. “Planning on hitting the gym early. Initial client meeting at 9:30. Premises check at noon, two client meetings at Sam’s office in the afternoon.”

“Oh, you’re busy,” Cas said. He didn’t mean to sound put out, but he was.

“Cas, you sound disappointed,” Dean teased.

“I’ll find things to do,” Cas promised. “Now that my feet aren’t as bad, maybe I’ll make dinner.”

Dean’s face lit up. He took a breath, and Cas forestalled him.

“I don’t know if I’d go so far as to get excited about pie, though,” Cas cautioned.

“Stop dragging my heart around,” Dean advised. “Pie is _life_.”

Cas rolled his eyes. They looked at each other, Dean mock-pleading, Cas mock grim.

Dean downed the rest of his tea in a gulp and said, “Back to blanket bay, boys,” he said.

Cas resisted. The little piece of domesticity had been charming. Dean was a goofball sometimes, but a very lovable one.

“I don’t wanna,” Cas said, like a whiney child.

“Up you get,” and Dean pulled on his hand. Cas, dropped the pretence that he didn’t want to be closer to Dean, and did not, as expected, either let go or stop moving. He moved close to Dean, and as Dean muttered in surprise, put his arms around him. Dean went rigid.

“Hey, hey,” Dean said. “What’s - uh -what’s happening?”

Cas let go and backed off.

“Did that disturb you?” he asked.

Dean looked hunted. “I dunno how I’m supposed to answer that.”

Cas shrugged. “When I woke up from my nightmare, you had your arms around me. Not exactly roommate behaviour.”

Dean’s face lost all expression, then gradually he frowned.

“Man, I’m sorry,” he said. “It was Sam’s old room; I was half asleep myself and forgot it was you and not Sammy.”

“Oh,” Cas said in a small voice. “I’m sorry. I seem to have a real talent for misjudging things.” And without another word he returned to his room.

He stared at the ceiling and started making plans to go. Dean, crazy, sexy, hilarious Dean, was not for him. It didn’t seem fair, but that had been the story of his life, long silent passions for unavailable men, and there was no reason this time would be any different.


	6. Fluffy Bunnies and Sweaty Orgasms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the interest of the dignity and feelings of readers, this constitutes your notice that there are neither bunnies nor orgasms in this chapter.

The next morning, he slept late, and overheard Dean on the phone, talking almost angrily with someone. Cas opened his bedroom door a crack and listened in with great curiosity.

“I’m not - Sammy, that’s your word.Jesus, Sammy, if I _had_ taken in a stray dog you’d be telling the world how fantastic I - “

Dean made a noise of disgust.

“No!” he said.

There was a long pause.

Dean sounded very frustrated. “I’m not ‘playing house’, we already talked about him paying rent after he recovers and finds work.”

Cas tilted his head, startled; there had been no such discussion. _Dean wants me to stay?_ Cas slowly smiled.

“He’s doing much better, thanks for asking, but I don’t think he’s completely out of the woods.”

There was another long pause.

“I don’t think - “

There was a short pause.

“No! I won’t let it affect my sobriety. You seem to think that he’ll run away in the middle of the night and I’ll start drinking again. He’s here for at least another couple of weeks, and it’s getting easier –“

Cas decided he didn’t want to be caught listening, quietly eased his door shut, and got dressed.

When he emerged, Dean was sitting at the kitchen table looking like he’d just choked down a toad.

“Who were you fighting with?” Cas said, rubbing his eyes.

“Sammy, of course. He’s under the impression you’re bad for me.”

“Bad for your wallet, but that’s only temporary,” Cas said. “I hit my aunt up for some bridge financing and I can at least pay you back for the clothes, et cetera.”

“Dude, you’re going to need it to get settled in a new place,” Dean said, brow wrinkling.

 _Why would Dean do that,_ Cas thought. _Tell Sam one thing and me something else?_

“Once I know where that place is,” Cas said. “Can I trouble you to change the dressings I can’t reach? After you’re fed and caffeinated?”

“Sure.”

It was the first time Dean had changed the dressings, and Cas figured it was best to get it over first thing, rather than imagining all day how he was going to cope with Dean running his hands over him. And how disgusting he’d find the scars and wounds.

Dean seemed to be troubled by the prospect, and stopped making eye contact. Cas went to the kitchen and poured himself coffee and set about microwaving some oatmeal. The silence stretched. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but there were undercurrents, and Cas was relieved to have at least some understanding of what they were.

He dropped some blueberries into the oatmeal and finished it with a sliver of butter.

As soon as he sat across from Dean, Dean got up, fried a couple of eggs and reheated some bacon.

Cas ate slowly and watched Dean cook.

“You seem upset,” Cas said.

Dean didn’t answer. He waited for the toast to pop and plated his breakfast. “There’s a hole in my life where the booze used to be,” Dean said. “There are times I wonder if it will fill in like a hole in the sand at the beach, and then I wonder if I’m always going to be empty like this.”

“Dean, you must feel terrible.”

“Not terrible. Just hollow, and empty, and like there’s nothing to look forward to.”

“That sounds pretty terrible to me.”

Dean got around his food, at speed.

“Okay, let’s do it,” Dean said. Cas rinsed out his bowl and cup and followed Dean into the bathroom. Cas sat on the toilet, and Dean on the edge of the tub. The process was uncomfortable, but Dean’s touch was so light, his own mother couldn’t have touched him more gently.

“All done,” Dean said.

Cas heard Dean sniff. They were sitting so close together, Cas had kept his eyes closed to keep the awkwardness at bay. At the sniff, he opened his eyes and looked directly into Dean’s. They were filled with tears.

“Dean,” Cas breathed. He raised a hand and touched Dean’s shoulder.

“Sorry,” Dean muttered. Cas dropped his hand.

“For what? what’s wrong?” Cas said, alarmed.

“For bein’ a watering can,” Dean said, almost growling. More softly, he said, “I’m really, really sorry that this happened to you. Nobody deserves it, but you really didn’t and it just got to me for a second, is all.”

Cas leaned forward and kissed Dean on the cheek; the man was a sweetheart and Cas couldn’t really help himself.

The response was not what he expected. Dean dropped his hands into his lap and looked poleaxed. Then he narrowed his eyes, raised his hands to the sides of Cas’s face, and pulled him forward for a kiss. A real one.

Cas exhaled, closed his eyes, and found himself sucking on Dean’s tongue.

“Oh god,” Dean said, almost despairing, after they pulled apart. “I don’t know where – or how – to touch you, with hurting you.”

“Do you want to touch me?” Cas said provocatively.

“I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“Maybe you can multitask, and worry about that while kissing me again.”

“Maybe not on the toilet?” Dean said. “Which raises the question -?”

“Stand up, Dean,” Cas said kindly.

They stepped out of the bathroom and Dean said, “Maybe if you– “

Cas picked up Dean’s hands between his own, kissed each one, and then settled one each on his hip. He put his arms around Dean’s ribs and kissed him, butterfly kisses across his neck and jawline. Dean’s breath came in brief little exhalations; his eyes were closed.

“Mm,” he said softly.

“What’s wrong,” Cas said, just barely audible.

“I - I -“ Dean said. “I’m kinda freaking out.”

“Okay,” Cas said, and released him. “I’ll stay in my room until you go to work,” Cas said, “and we won’t mention it again.”

“What? No! I’m - Cas don’t get me wrong, I wanna to kiss you a whole lot more, I’m just –“

Cas took him by the hand, brought him out to the living room and sat him down on the sofa. He sat next to him.

Dean said, in a rush, “I haven’t had sex without being drunk in fifteen years. I don’t think I’ve even necked without being at least a little sloshed.”

“Oh,” Cas said. “I can see how that would be troubling.”

“Can you? I imagine you can, you’re not a complete fuckup, like me.”

“See, this is where AA is useful; you could call your sponsor and –“ but Dean interrupted him.

“Booze stops me from feeling anything. I can ‘get the job done’. Now it’s not a job.”

“Why on earth would sex be ‘a job’?” Cas asked.

“I was doing what was expected,” Dean said.

“Good thing I have no expectations,” Cas said, with the ghost of a laugh.

_Hopes, but no expectations._

“Relax Dean. You’re interested, I’m interested, it’s a logistics problem. Tell me what you want!”

“What do you want?” Dean said, awkwardly.

“I want you to put your head in my lap so I can stroke your hair and tell you how wonderful you are.”

“Seriously.” Dean had a comical look of disbelief.

“Well, you are,” Cas said.

“You’re deranged,” Dean said, almost laughing.

“Opinions vary,” Cas said sweetly. Dean, shaking his head a little, complied, and put his head in Cas’s lap, facing outward.

“Do you know,” Cas said, “I really don’t know what to make of you, Dean Winchester.” He started stroking Dean’s hair, and Dean made a little crumpled sound like he was coming unglued. Then Dean heaved a great sigh and his whole body relaxed.

Cas murmured, “You are so kind. So strong. Thoughtful and funny and practical and compassionate. You know, the first time I could really focus on your face I thought I’d died and you were an angel, and then had to wonder if angels have freckles? It’s ludicrous, really, how good-looking you are. I always assume anybody as good-looking as you is an asshole, so it’s, I don’t know — startling — when I meet someone as nice on the inside as the outside.”

“You don’t know that,” Dean muttered. Cas stroked his head, and Dean found it scary - and strange - and wonderful - how good it felt. He alternately wanted to fall on Cas like a tasty meal or lie there forever being petted and fussed over.

“Oh, but I do,” Cas said. “When you bought all new clothes for me I thought I’d never met a man so insanely, thoughtlessly generous. And I think that even though _now_ I know you might have had an ulterior motive.”

“I didn’t until I took you for the shoulder x-ray,” Dean said. “The way you looked at me when I left –“

“Yeah,” Cas said. He stroked Dean’s hair for a while.

“You said something about logistics,” Dean said, hopefully.

“I haven’t got my test results back,” Cas said. “Technically, we shouldn’t even be kissing.”

Dean sounded flat. “So, no fluids?”

“We shouldn’t … which is a shame, because I’ve never been so artistically and satisfactorily kissed.”

“Jury’s still out, for me, I’ll have to check again later,” Dean murmured. Dean’s watch alarm went off. He shifted his arm so he could check the time.

“Crap,” he said. “I gotta be somewhere. Can I ask you to hold the thought?”

“Something else I’d rather hold,” Cas said.

Dean smirked, and then turned his head and blew warm air through the fabric next to Cas’s fly.

“My god, Dean!” Cas groaned. Dean sat up and put his lips to Cas’s neck.

“Think of your poor clients,” Cas said. His erection was trying to make itself outstanding.

“Fuck’em,” Dean said succinctly.

Cas got up and said, “As long as you’re supporting me, which sounds really strange now that I’ve said it out loud, it’s my job to nag you to go to work.”

Dean stood, rapidly and amusingly adjusted himself and his nascent erection and said, “As long as I’m supporting you, I’m expecting dinner on the goddamned table when I get home.” He pulled Cas into his arms and grabbed his ass.

Cas made a tiny yip of surprise and had to take a breath. Dean loosened his grip a little. Cas said, muffled by Dean’s chest, “Works for me. How do you feel about stir fry?”

“Sounds like a goddamned conspiracy to get more vegetables into me,” Dean growled softly into his ear.

“You claimed you were eating better, and you need two for a conspiracy,” Cas pointed out. “If it’s just one person, it’s nagging.”

Dean’s lips were on his ear. Scarcely breathing the words, he said, “Are you a nag?”

“Yes, Dean,” Cas said. “I’m a nag. Everyone says so.”

Dean’s hand came up and banged into the worst of the bites, and Cas yelped in earnest.

“Shit,” Dean said.

“It’s okay,” Cas said.

“I’ll kiss it better, later. Right now I gotta fly.” They broke apart and looked at each other. Dean gave a smile that promised fluffy bunnies and sweaty orgasms, and ruffled Cas’s hair. “I’ll be back as fast as I possibly can.”


	7. A few anxious moments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas wants to canoodle. He is forced to define canoodle. Dean brings home candy. Sam knows something is up, but Dean is one slippery customer.

Cas realized that if he didn’t make a list of things to do, he was going to spend however long it took Dean to get back alternately wandering around the house in a daze and lying in bed panicking.

He ran a load of laundry. It felt comfortingly domestic, and it was a pleasure not to have wait in the apartment building laundry room for the whole process.

He looked up the requirements for getting a Private Investigator licence in the State of Colorado.

The bank called and advised that they were accepting his account being cleaned out as theft and putting the money back in as insured. That was a relief. He could pay Dean back. He had been keeping a running total, and it was amazing how expensive it all was, with the prescriptions and shoes and what not. He wrote a check and put it in an envelope on the kitchen counter.

He prepped all the vegetables and chicken for supper and put it back in the fridge. 

He thought about leaving the house but his feet said he couldn’t handle it. It was a nice day so he did (technically) leave the house, spending some time on the back deck. He kept looking at the spot where he’d been found. A neighbor came out to water the flowerpots on her patio and Cas felt exposed, ludicrous and guilty for no reason. He was Dean Winchester’s houseguest and he had a right to be on the deck. It didn’t matter. He was not feeling sociable, so he casually got up and went back inside.

He kept looking at the spot where he’d been found. He was glad to be cocooned again. _Too much like a wounded animal_.

There was always the possibility she’d seen something, although she’d been in bed asleep when he’d appeared in Dean’s yard, at least according to the info Dean had pried from the cops.

It was impossible not to think about Dean. Imagination was too timid to stretch as far as what it would be like, to be able to experience the warmth and scent and sheer physical delight of making love with him, in a bed, full stop. But he could imagine holding him, and being held. He put his laundry away and thought about Dean’s breath on his neck. He thought about the rapist biting him, and he said, “Fuck you!” to the picture of Heath Ledger as the Joker that someone, probably Dean, had hung in Sam’s old room. _You made an impact on me, you bastard_ , he silently addressed the rapist, _but I will give you no hold on my life._

He wanted to go through Dean’s room and creep on him, but trusted Dean to have security cameras, and so he didn’t.

He didn’t have it in him yet to vacuum, but he could empty trash, so he did.

Awkwardly, he masturbated, so he wouldn’t be too trigger happy, just in case something, who knew what, happened.

He bagged up his feet and took a shower.

Around one thirty, the Impala’s increasingly welcome rumble was heard, and Cas gave a little involuntary jerk of anticipation.

Dean came in the back.

“Hey Lucy,” he called.

“You get to say that precisely _once_ ,” Cas called back.

“Woo! Touchy,” Dean said. “Duly noted. I got you what you wanted.”

“Since you hauled your ass through the door, I already know that.”

There was a thump as Dean dropped something, and Dean’s face popped around the corner from the laundry room, comically distorted in mock surprise.

“Sassy _and_ touchy. What gives?”

Cas had folded his arms. He lowered his voice. “Yelling from room to room is low class. It’s also how my family communicated in my youth and it makes me anxious as hell.”

“Be anxious no more,” Dean said. “I got edibles.”

“Oh,” Cas said.

Dean put two little unmarked paper bags down on the coffee table. “I really want to try one. I haven’t been high for — well, a while.”

“You paid for them, why not? But I’d wait for a moment when the needs of your clients aren’t urgent.”

“I’m having a lengthy meeting with my pro boner client, Cas Novak,” Dean said.

“Since you’re expecting me to say, ‘I see what you did there’ I’m just going to go ahead and say, ‘I see what you did there’,” Cas remarked.

“These are supposed to be good for skin pain and pain in general,” Dean said, pointing to one bag. “Those are the Cas ones. These bad boys are for me. I’m going to do my future self a favor, though, and leave them until after supper, though.”

Cas, who’d been drawing breath to suggest something similar, relaxed.

“You can take yours now,” Dean said, frowning at Cas.

“I owe you more money, but the bank stuff is at least partly straightened out, so I wrote you a check for what I owe you so far.”

“Yippee.” For some reason Dean wasn’t thrilled.

Cas unwrapped one little square of edible pot candy after carefully reading the information that came with it. Dean was wild with impatience, watching him read.

He popped it in his mouth. Nothing would happen for a while, and that was fine.

“Did you come home to eat? Or drop these off?”

“I didn’t want them in my car. I know it’s legal but I have a reputation as being against all drugs but alcohol.”

“Dean,” Cas said suddenly. He was still sucking nougat off his teeth, so he sounded indistinct.

“What,” Dean said. He sounded cautious.

“Is this going to affect your sobriety?”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Dean said. “I doubt it, but you can run off to my brother to complain if something happens that bothers you.”

“I don’t need your permission to do that, but thanks for telling me it’s okay,” Cas said.

There was a brief and chilly pause.

“Did I do something wrong?” Dean asked.

“No,” Cas said, sighing. “I’m a backward dolt. The science says that marijuana use can stabilize people coming off alcohol, at least according to what I’ve read, and so I’m just going to stop criticizing you now.”

“Don’t worry, something else to criticize will show up soon,” Dean said soothingly.

“It already has. I thought we were going to be canoodling,” Cas said, allowing the last word to stretch out.

“Define canoodling,” Dean said. His voice had dropped a couple of semi-tones and his expression was teasing.

“When the hand is on the thing-a-ma-jig and the thing-a-ma-jig is on the hand, but the thing-a-ma-jig is never in the thing-a-ma-jig,” Cas said with a straight face.

Dean burst out laughing. “I haven’t heard that since grade school. I’m a terrible influence on you, you know that?”

“I do. Now, since the promised canoodling has failed to appear, I’m going to nap.”

“I was going to suggest we multitask,” Dean said. His eyebrows were doing the Unforgivable Thing.

Not being able to kiss was maddening.

Dean picked up Cas’s ankles and stretched his legs down the couch and lay next to him. “Ow,” Cas said breathlessly.

“I keep hurting you,” Dean said. His lips were inches away from a kiss.

“The alternative is worse,” Cas said.

“Really?”

“That you’re not _in_ my life to _hurt_ me,” Cas said.

“Spoken like a true masochist,” Dean said. “But I really don’t want to hurt you, not that my intentions matter, when you’re hurt. Now if I knew where to touch you so it _wouldn’t_ hurt, that would be great. Can I help you take off that T-shirt?”

“Dean, I want to talk to you about that.”

“What?” Dean said obediently. Dean’s fingers were caressing the side of his neck with casual skill.

“It’s a boundary. I won’t take my shirt off. Not even… not even if we have … full-on sex.”

Dean said, as if it would make all the difference, “I’ve _seen_ you.”

“How nice for you,” Cas said acidly. “I can’t feel sexy while someone is looking at the scars on my back. The bites make it a thousand times worse. It doesn’t matter what my lover thinks — that’s not a cure-all for how I _feel_. You can be one hundred percent okay with it, you could even be a scar fetishist and turned on by it, but that doesn’t affect my _hating to be seen_ like that.”

“Would you take your shirt off if it was pitch dark?” Dean asked after a moment.

“Yes, I would. But the shirt goes back on the second any sex stops happening,” Cas said.

There was another long pause. Dean took a breath. “You’re never going to take your shirt off unless I can’t see you. If I don’t like it, too bad. It’s non-negotiable,” Dean said. “Did I hit all the high points?”

“Yes, Dean. Is it going to be a problem?”

“I respect your right to have strong views about how you look as long as you respect my right not to share them,” Dean said. “Now can we have that fucking nap? You’re fucking cranky.” He kissed Cas’s forehead and turned around so Cas could hug him from behind.

The edible slowly took effect. Pain seeped out of Cas’s body and went someplace, who knew where. His breathing slowed and he slept.

Dean got up and went back to work, in this case an update meeting that he took over the phone in Baby, and a power meeting with his brother about some screwed up documents, which got straightened out in two minutes and turned into Sam bugging him about Cas.

“I mean, what do you know about this guy?” Sam kvetched.

 _What, apart from his eyes make me melt and his lips make me horny and his ass makes me — want to buy an ‘off-limits’ sign?_ Dean thought to himself with his usual single-minded humor.

“Don’t you have a client to overcharge? I ran him through all the databases; he’s so clean he makes whistles look dirty, which, when you consider that they’re a weird kind of spit collector, actually makes sense,” Dean said, trailing off as he thought about it. He brightened. “So either he was already in witness protection, which, no, he isn’t, or he’s who he says he is, and a solid citizen.”

“You seem very attached to him already.”

“Why not? He could be crying in a corner and he’s quietly getting better and moving on. I like people who take their own problems seriously enough to do something about them. And he’s going to the survivor group tomorrow night, I already agreed to take him.”

“You seem a little over-involved.”

“Why? Cause I changed his dressings? Cause I’m running him around to errands?”

“You can’t seem to stop talking about him.”

“I find Cas very entertaining,” Dean said.

“You find a rape survivor entertaining,” Sam said, as if this made Dean the worst person on earth.

“Him being a rape survivor is not the most important thing about him!” Dean said, with an irritation which startled Sam. “Sam, if you’d ever been raped do you think that’s the frame you’d want people to always put you in? How about you being smart, or kind, or skilled, or hard-working? Or even funny? Cas has never had a living situation where he felt safe to make jokes. Now that he can, he’s making jokes. Is he a bad person for that?”

“I think,” Sam said slowly, “That Cas is trying to turn himself into a person you’ll like. So that he can stay put.”

“Of course he can stay put, he’s here for another three weeks, minimum, and then he’s thinking of moving back to Atlanta,” Dean said. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it sure wasn’t anything close to the truth, at least as long as Dean had any influence. “And why would he need to make an effort to change?” Dean said. “He already knows I — think he’s okay,” Dean said, obviously shifting what he was going to say in the middle of the sentence. Sam felt a cold wind blow down the back of his neck. The last time Dean had been so keen on someone, it had been a woman, and he’d almost married her.

Even more slowly, Sam said, “Do you have — Dean, do you have romantic feelings for Cas?”

Dean, who wanted to watch his dick disappear into Cas’s mouth until he bust a nut while Cas fluttered his lashes at him, burst out laughing.“Romantic? What the hell, Sam.”

Sam took a legalistic view of things, which was good, since he was a lawyer. He refined the question. “Are you sexually interested in Cas?”

Dean had been expecting it, and he dodged effortlessly. “You’re asking me if I’m sexually interested in a man who’s been bitten all over his torso and anally raped — when you know I don’t play for that team. Wanna rephrase the question?”

He escaped shortly afterward. He hated himself for lying to Sam, but the alternative was — _no, Winchester, not going there._

He went to the gym and hit the heavy bag until everything from his neck to his hands hurt, and then ran like a fool on the treadmill. A guy low-key propositioned him in the shower and Dean actually said, “No thanks, I got someone at home,” and thought to himself, _Jeez if Sam only knew. Except he does, I’m just not admitting it._


	8. I'd need to see concept art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean takes a financial hit. Cas cooks dinner. They end up on the sofa talking dirty.

Somehow he had to prevent himself from driving home and flinging himself on Cas. Cas was still recovering from a horrible ordeal and was being a real trooper, for God’s sake. So he planned for the next three hours to do what he hated more than anything else (almost); he went through the new phone listings and made cold calls, while watching a storage rental joint from across the street.He was tempted to hammer a nail into the tree behind him and hang a video camera, but experience had taught him that only the lazy and desperate did that, and he made an effort to avoid the appearance of being either. Also, he knew of at least one case when a PI had done that and caught footage of a much bigger fish doing much nastier things, and the shit had not been careful who it touched after it contacted the fan. Dean made a face thinking about it, and then another face as he realized that it was magic time. He said, “Sorry, I’ll have to call you back,” to the startled woman on the phone, and he picked up his camera and caught four perfect shots of the truck arriving at the storage unit, license plate unobscured, and the handyman and the priest getting out.

He put the camera down and the great light dawned.

“They’re bangin’ and this is where they’re doin’ it.” The handyman was married with two kids; that was why Dean hadn’t immediately connected that they were doing the nasty.

Hypocrisy nipped and danced at his heels, and then rolled on its back suggestively.

“Ahhhh. Shit,” Dean said. He gave them twenty minutes, and almost to the second they reappeared, not noticeably more disheveled but a good deal less tense, and he got shots of that too.

Feeling like a complete heel, Dean sprinted across the street and met them at the exit gate, panting slightly. He showed his ID as he motioned them to stop.

“Hi guys,” Dean said. “You’re stealing your employer’s time.”

Their faces would have been comical if the situation hadn’t been so dire.

Dean continued. “Stop using the church’s storage locker as a love nest. Either get laid on your own time and at your own expense, or find somewhere else to work. I’m gonna pretend I never spoke to you, but you shouldn’t.”

Dean texted the client, the local Diocese, “In accordance with the rules of conduct of my profession, as I am now in a conflict of interest which could be construed to be to your detriment, I am returning your retainer by mail,” _and shit,_ that _hurts_ , “and recommending two other PIs.”

He then texted the PIs and told them he’d recommended them to the Diocese. One immediate texted back, “Last time I worked for them I carried them longer than my mother carried me, no thanks.” The other merely said, “Tks.”

 _Yeah, well we can tell who’s getting_ that _job,_ Dean thought. He thought about beer. It was a hot day. He thought about four beers, or eight beers. He thought about Cas’s face if he came through the door with booze on his breath. Growing up with an alcoholic dad. It would be torture. He’d be trapped in a house with a drunk; he was still in no shape to travel around independently — although he was walking straighter and limping less — so he wouldn’t likely leave. Probably he’d just hide in Sam’s old room, terrified.

He could smell a beer under his nose. It was a hallucination, a brief sensory jolt. He could feel the bubbles, the crisp taste, rolling down his gullet. Baby didn’t have air conditioning, one of her many idiosyncrasies/flaws, and he was sweating.

He had to go straight home, and not stop.

It was four-thirty, at least an hour earlier than he’d wanted to get home, but he came through the door shaking. Cas levered himself up to stand, he was so alarmed by Dean’s face.

“That was close,” Dean said into Cas’s neck.

“Sit,” Cas said softly. They broke apart and sat down on the sofa.

“Can I sleep in your bed tonight?” Dean asked.

“Uh,” Cas said. His heart was already pounding away, and decided to gallop rather than canter. “I — uh, Dean we need to be careful.”

“I want your arms around me. I’ll be good, I just —“

“Dean, what happened?” He looked like he’d seen a ghost.

“I was getting paid to spy on another bisexual man and I lost it and told him I was spying on him and then I had to refund the client’s retainer.”

 _Yikes_. “How much?”

“Fifteen hundred bucks. Good thing this house is paid for, hunh?” Dean said with a weak laugh.

“So you took an ethics and financial hit and you — you wanted a drink.”

Cas put his nose up to Dean’s and sniffed delicately.

“You absolute prick,” Dean said. He was mocking Cas, and himself, for how hot he found it.

Cas knew he was being teased, and smiled, the brief three-cornered smile that made him look quaintly mischievous. Then the smile turned into something broader and more affirming. “You didn’t drink. You came home.”

He backed up along the couch and really looked at Dean.

“You noticed,” Dean said. He was mocking himself for hoping somebody had noticed his effort.

It was stupid. He thought his heart would burst when Cas said, “Of _course_ you can sleep in my bed tonight, but if you pull any funny business I’m sending you back to your room.”

“Scouts’ honor.”

“Did you want me to get started on dinner?” Cas made as if to stand.

“I’m going to have a candy,” Dean said. “Maybe two.”

Cas looked alarmed. “I really, really wouldn’t advise it. I was looking up dosages and one of those should be _plenty_ for your post-work relaxation needs,” Cas warned.

“Somebody’s always harshing my mellow,” Dean whined, but (after making a great show of reading the pamphlet that came with it while Cas snickered at him) he only popped one into his mouth. “My post-work relaxation needs include food, sex, TV and sleep.”

“Three out of four ain’t bad,” Cas said. This time he got up, shaking his head, and limped into the kitchen.

“What, no TV tonight?” Dean asked in mock horror.

“That’s right!” Cas said, as if he had just figured it out, “You can always have sex with yourself.”

“And I do. How about you?”

Cas rolled his eyes. “Managed it today, thanks for asking, and it was rather painful and awkward.”

After a pause, Dean said, “You really should get somebody to help you with that.”

“I’m working on it, but there are still a few kinks.”

Dean said. “Mine, or yours? I got kinks to spare.”

“I was afraid of that.” Cas’s tone was repressive.

Dean said dreamily, “Some I only just found out about, like lying with my head in someone’s lap while they play with my hair.” He fluttered the fingers on both of his hands. Dean being goofy was almost his favorite Dean.

“That’s not even foreplay, that’s just being affectionate,” Cas said, still chiding.

“Go ahead, tell my dick _in person_ **that** wasn’t foreplay. I was hard as a door-knocker in four point four seconds,” Dean said.

“You blew hot air on my dick. I kept thinking about it while I was jerking off,” Cas said. Dean was abruptly standing behind him. His warm hands had settled on Cas’s hips. His lips pressed against his neck. Everything stopped feeling bad and everything abruptly felt right and then Cas was filled with a wordless terror that Dean would find him sexually deficient and to cover it, he said, “Dean, I need to get the veggies out of the fridge.”

Dean fell back. But he needed to be closer to Cas than the sofa, so he sat at the kitchen table and watched from there instead.

“Go watch TV if you want to,” Cas said, after a minute.

“Trying to get rid of me?” Dean said.

“Dean, it’s your house.”

“Mi casa es su casa,” Dean said.

“I’d like to completely re-do the living room in a stuffed animal motif,” Cas said. People always _said_ shit like ‘my house is your house’, but they never _meant_ it.

“I’d need to see concept art,” Dean said after a very brief pause.

Cas thought, _Full marks!_

Dean bit his lip hard, imagining coming home and fighting his way through a thicket of stuffed giraffes to collect a kiss from Cas. _It would be_ ** _worth_** _it, goddamnit._

“And in pink,” Cas said, whipping the meat, ginger and garlic he was searing up in the air a couple of times, “Lots of pink.”

“There’s more than enough pink in any room if your lips are in it,” Dean said.

Cas turned toward the kitchen table and gave Dean the shadiest side-eye he could produce. Dean’s response was an exaggerated, ‘ _Waaaat? I call ‘em like I see ‘em_ ’ shrug.

Cas startled to chuckle. _The man is incorrigible, and you love it._

Cas put the veggies in, drizzled in soy sauce and asked Dean to set the table. Once again he was grasped and kissed from behind, startlingly fast, as Dean flew past him to collect cutlery and plates and within minutes he was sitting in front of Dean, watching him eat as if Dean had just been told he would be shot in a few minutes.

“It’s damn good!” Dean said, as if to excuse his intake rate.

“How can you even be tasting it? You are actually supposed to _chew_ your food, Dean!”

“I’m showing my appreciation by devouring it, and besides I’m starting to feel that candy.”

“Told you. You’ll probably be going through all your old albums from when you were seventeen —“

“Unlikely,” Dean said. His mood had abruptly changed.

“Okay, then you’re going to watch completely mindless TV, and I’ll be happy to join you for that.”

Dean rose. “I’ll clear up after supper.” He felt a little woozy as he stood, but it cleared and he felt fine by the time he was done. Cas sat on the sofa, reading the PI manual.

“What the hell you readin’ that for?” Dean asked as he sat, carefully, next to him.

“Research,” Cas said. “I had no idea I’d have to apprentice to you for more than a year to get my licence.”

“What?” This struck Dean as funny, and he laughed. He saw the expression on Cas’s face and added, “You don’t think it’s funny.”

“It seems like a relatively inexpensive profession to get set up in, and if I had your assistance I could get my licence well within eighteen months. Then I could either help you or start my own business.”

“You’re serious.”

“Dean, I’m ready for a change, and I wouldn’t mind setting my own hours and working from home. It doesn’t have to be _your_ home, if the thought of me doing it irks you so much.”

“Irks me? What the hell you talking about, man? I just think you’re maybe not the right personality type for it.”

“Nosy, smart and detail oriented? I think I’d do fine,” Cas sniffed. “And I wouldn’t carry a gun.”

“It’s not usually necessary, it’s just that there are a couple of armed individuals who’ve sworn to shoot me dead, so I’m usually carrying when I’m out.”

“I suppose you could have told me earlier, but then I guess I’m lucky you told me that at all. Anything else you need to get off your chest?”

Dean said, in a cartoon voice, “I think I’m becoming remarkably high.” In a more normal voice, he said, “Now I’m remembering why I don’t do this shit, I do not want to move.”

“Is it time for you to lie down and put your head in my lap?”

“Oh god yes, I think so,” Dean said, curling up next to Cas and lowering his head. “I want you to play with my hair.”

“How does it make you feel?” Cas said mischievously. He took advantage of Dean’s sudden chattiness.

“Well, at first it just makes me realize that nobody ever touches me there. It’s like this huge erogenous zone quietly hanging out at the top of my head, man.”

Cas unsuccessfully stifled a laugh.

“What?” Dean said. “It’s true. And then it’s kind of relaxing, because you just don’t notice how much tension you carry around in your scalp, and then it’s like ‘OH MY GOD there’s a _man_ touching my _hair_ , and his dick is in my ear, and now my dick is so _hard_ and fuck I have to _leave_.” This was all in the tones of an excitable teenager.

After a pause, in his normal voice, Dean said, thinking back, “I almost whacked off in the car, which is so gross; I can’t recall the last time I did that. But I controlled myself. I’m going to keep controlling myself.” This was with an attempt at a noble, ringing tone, which failed to make much of an impression through the sound-baffle of Cas’s jeans.

“I will eventually find out what the hell is going on with me health-wise and whether or not you and I can start… well I suppose that’s a conversation for another time,” Cas said.

“Why? This is getting interesting!” Dean said. He squirmed his head against Cas’s groin. His eyes were closed.

“You’re high, and you’ll be higher in a minute. Find a funny movie to watch. Listen to music.”

“Stay right here and keep your dick in my ear, that’s the plan.”

“I might have other plans,” Cas said. “You should lie on your bed and listen to music.”

“What plans do _you_ have?”

“I was going to write letters to various family members, let them know where I am and what happened to me.”

“Why not just email them?”

“I grew up in the land time forgot,” Cas said. “It’s like everybody in the family hates technology, or finds a way to make a living that doesn’t require it. My aunt doesn’t have a computer, my cousins don’t even have a phone line, and my other cousin lives in the Alaskan wilderness about a hundred and thirty miles from the nearest airport. Of course my aunt already knows I’m here. She’s the only one of my family members that I’m out to — well, with the exception of the brother who made me move to Denver and then promptly left me here.”

“You’re not out to your family?” Dean seemed horrified.

“Are you?” Cas asked pointedly.

Dean grunted but didn’t answer.

“Weird that I’m out to more of your family than I am to mine,” Cas said. His right hand continued to trace patterns across Dean’s scalp.

“Thass horrible.”

“I think it makes it easy to understand why I’m clinging to you like a burr on a dog’s ass,” Cas said.

Dean took a breath. “Sam doesn’t know I’m bi,” Dean said. “He probably suspects. We never talked about it.”

Cas said after a minute. “How long have you known?”

“When I hit puberty it was pretty obvious to me that I liked boys _and_ girls. If I’d trusted my Mom a bit more I might have told her, but I figured she’d run off and tell Dad, and my dad _hated_ queers. Just fuckin’ hated ‘em. Something happened to him while he was overseas — or when he was young — I’m guessing. I don’t know for sure. He used to go nuts if a gay man appeared on TV. He’d literally throw food if he saw Liberace.”

“Sounds like my old man.”

“What was he like?”

“He was a foul, domineering, secretive, violent drunk. He put me in hospital twice and instead of getting help, I was treated by doctors who thought my father was completely within his rights to beat me as punishment for minor offences. I stopped believing in God a long time ago, but hell? I still have hopes for hell,” Cas said quietly.

“I know the feeling,” Dean breathed.

Dean’s phone rang.

“Yuh,” Dean said, after fumbling for the phone.

“Yeah Sammy.”

Short pause.

“Yeah, it’s tomorrow night, just like we talked about earlier. We’ll be going.”

Short pause.

“I’m driving, so yeah, we’ll both be going. I was planning on just sitting in the parking lot and catching up on progress reports.”

Short pause.

“I probably sound funny because I’m laying down on the sofa,” Dean said. He pressed his lips silently into Cas’s thigh, and Cas’s mouth twitched.

Short pause.

“Well, none of the bites are infected, and his feet are getting better and his appetite is picking up,” and here Dean tilted his head to look up at Cas and watched Cas lick his lips as soon as he heard the word appetite, making Dean cough/snicker in his throat. “So he’s doing fine, thanks for asking.”

“Me? I’m fucked, I just had to hand back a fat retainer for conflict of interest. I’m also fucked because I ate a pot candy about 45 minutes ago and I’m definitely in for the night.”

Sam appeared to be losing his mind on the other end of the phone.

Dean took it for about two minutes, and then he said, “Sammy. Sammy. Sammy,” like a man calming down a screaming child. “I’m not driving drunk. I’m not asking you to pull me out of a ditch. I’m lying on the sofa, not hurting a fly, or you, or myself or anybody.” He put his right forefinger up to Cas’s lips and started tracing the outline. Cas closed his eyes, lifted his chin a little, and started to breathe faster.Dean smiled. Cas raised a hand and slid the forefinger into his mouth, eyes still closed, and Dean said, “Yowza!” in startled tones.

“Sam, I’m done letting you whack me verbally. If you want to rant at me, save it for when I care.” He hung up, awkwardly, since he usually used two hands and one was, er, busy.

He sat up, sliding his finger out of Cas’s mouth. Cas’s eyes opened, and for one brief second they appealed for a kiss. Then recollection came, and Cas almost frowned. Dean picked up Cas’s right hand and started sucking on the forefinger. Cas’s eyes closed and he moaned.

“Hot, isn’t it,” Dean whispered. He leaned forward and started licking Cas’s ear.

“We really shouldn’t be doing this.”

“I gotta do something, even if it’s run off to my room to jerk off,” Dean said.

“Maybe —“ Cas said, and then stopped.

“You wanna watch me?”

Dean, in extremis. Moaning.

“I —“

“Or would you rather come for me?” Dean said. There was the faint scrape of his whiskers against Cas’s neck. He shivered.

“I’m used to having sex in complete darkness,” Cas said. “I don’t imagine that would be much fun for you.”

“I’ll buy you an eye mask and you can pretend it’s dark,” Dean said. “I want to watch you pleasure yourself… so I know what to do.”

“Dean, I don’t think you have any idea about how much I expect to enjoy making love with you.”

“And it would be,” Dean breathed. “Making love,” and then he said something that alarmed Cas so much that he shifted away from Dean and stood up.

“I’m falling in love with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you like? leave comment! make author sling words faster. good.


	9. The Garth Cascade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas and Dean swap spots on the sofa. Garth arrives with an EMF meter and a new theory.

Dean’s eyes went wide. Cas’s expression shifted into a long, embarrassed wince. Then he took a deep breath, smiled brightly and said, “That pot’s really good. Ten bucks says if you were let outside right now you’d tell all your neighbors that.”

Dean frowned. “Wait a minute! Did I say something wrong?”

Cas’s head drooped for a second. “Maybe it’s a timing issue. Honestly Dean, you’re so high right now it wouldn’t be fair to hold you to that. I won’t take it personally.”

Dean thought, _I’m falling in love with you, but that’s okay because you won’t take it personally. Well, damn. Best roll with it._

“I _am_ prone to exaggeration,” Dean said.

Cas smiled, less painfully this time.

Cas got seltzer water out of the fridge and poured two glasses, to Dean’s intense relief, since that seemed to portend that he’d stay in the room, and then retook his seat, to Dean’s even more intense relief.

“No more finger sucking,” Cas said, with gentle emphasis. “I can’t remember if I ever did that before, but if I did, it sure’s hell didn’t feel like what you just did to me.”

Dean realized he was thirsty and downed half of his glass. He set it down, and before he could speak, he belched a gaseous cloud of garlic and seltzer at Cas.

There was a brief, appalled silence.

“Perhaps, next time, you can make your opinion of my cooking known from a little farther away,” Cas said.

“Not my sexiest move, I’ll admit,” Dean said.

Cas was keyed-up, not irritated. “Put your damned head down.”

“I’m waiting for the day you say that and I blow you for a reply,” Dean said.

“Dean, can we talk about what happens if that day doesn’t come?”

Dean’s phone rang.

“Fuck, I’m too high to take this. Answer Winchester Investigations, you _will_ be graded,” Dean said. He closed his eyes and listened hard.

“Winchester Investigations, Cas Novak speaking.”

“Mr. Novak? I was told I could reach you at this number. This is Officer Sherylle Palmer of the Denver Police Department.”

“Officer Palmer,” Cas said. Dean couldn’t believe the call hadn’t been for him and was almost sulking, the big baby.

“I have a request, and if you’re able to assist we may be a step closer to catching your attacker,” she said.

“I’ll do what I can,” Cas said, stiffening in anticipation of something difficult.

“If any more glass comes out of your feet, as you’re healing, can you put it in a clean baggie and get it to us? This would be evidence we might be able to use to demonstrate your whereabouts before you arrived in Mr. Winchester’s yard.”

“I’ll do that if I possibly can,” Cas said. “Thanks for calling,” he said. “Good-bye.”

He pressed End.

“How’d I do?” Cas asked serenely.

“You are a fucking wiseass, you know that? A goddamned know-it-all. I heard most of that. What I can’t believe is that they’re actually working on the case, or pretending to.”

“Dean!” Cas said.

“I solved two cases the DPD was too fuckin’ lazy to. I know it’s no picnic being a big city police department cop but … and no, I’m not wasting this fucking high on complaining about those assholes. For all I know they’re paying more attention because they know I’ll be looking for him too! Don’t want me to beat them to it!” Dean was crowing, “A-a-a-ah!”

“Fine, Dean, what would you prefer to talk about.”

“Swapping spots.”

“What?”

“It’s time for you to experience my magical hands on your scalp. You will tingle in places previously unknown to anatomy, I guaran-damn-tee it.”

“I - uh - okay,” Cas stammered.

They switched places and Cas said, looking up, “Flare your nostrils!” and Dean cracked up. He flared his nostrils as mightily as he could, while Cas hooted with laughter.

“You are a complete goofball,” Cas said.

“You know you like it,” Dean said.

“I know you know, you skunk,” Cas grumbled. He’d turned his head to face outward, and Dean cracked his knuckles and got to work.

It felt strange to be touching another man’s hair without another object in mind. Cas didn’t want anything to happen beyond the lightest of petting. He couldn’t kiss him. He’d need to be wearing latex (or getting it jammed in somewhere) for any other fun, and he couldn’t stand the idea, which was stupid, since Cas had every right to be shy of intimacy right now anyway and his opinion hardly mattered. He reminded himself that it was a privilege to snuggle with Cas on the sofa.

It occurred to Dean that he’d never challenged himself like this before. _Here is the starting line, and it’s not giving forty-five minutes of head on the first date. Or whatever._ He’d had a lot of interesting first dates.

It’s stroking your fingers through your man’s hair, while thinking of theoverwhelming and filthy and hot, hot loving you were gonna rain down on him for as long as he could stand it, at the earliest opportunity.After about three minutes, Cas’s shoulders started to shake. There was a little skip in Dean’s thought processes. “What, what?”

In a thick voice, Cas said, “Sorry.”

“You’re crying? What’d’I do?” Dean asked.

“Nothing, nothing, I just, I wasn’t expecting it.”

“Expecting what?” Dean asked. He braced himself, and pulled his hands away.

Cas sat up. His silver tear streaks went sideways.

“When I asked you to put your head in my lap — I thought I could feel like I was ‘in control’ of things.” Dean shook his head a little at how cute those air quotes were.

“Now I feel like you’re in control, and I thought that would make me feel — because of — “ Here Cas trailed off. Dean held his breath.

“But it felt — it feels _wonderful_. You’re running your fingers through my hair and I’m feeling very happy and pretty relaxed, and then, and then I realize that the last person who did that for me was my mother, and she’s been dead twenty-five years — and I started crying.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Dean said, after swallowing. “Lie the fuck down.”

Cas lay down. “I just wanted to tell you so it wouldn’t bother you that what you’re doing is making me cry.”

“Missing your mother is making you cry, I’m just making it easier to miss her,” Dean said. His fingers resumed their lazy tracery around the exposed parts of his scalp.

 _You bastard,_ Cas thought blankly. _This was a crush before you said that._

“I’m going to need your help with something this evening,” Cas said. Maybe if he diverted focus from one bad thing (Dean and his almost complete unavailability) to another (his feet)…

“We’re still on for operation ‘Sweet Dreams for Dean’?” Dean asked hopefully.

“If that’s about you sleeping in my bed, which is actually your bed, you miscreant, yes,” Cas murmured. “So if I can return to the problem you interrupted me from dealing with, I need your help with my feet.”

“Your feet.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

Dean quirked his mouth. “Why are you always apologizing? It’s not necessary.”

“I grew up having to apologize for existing,” Cas said.

“Fuck that noise,” Dean said dismissively. “Time to live large.”

“I don’t know what you’re implying.”

“I have a few ideas,” Dean said. “I have lots of ideas. Lemme know when you want me to deal with your feet.”

“Ack,” Cas said. Dean stroked his hair.

“Shift,” Dean said after a long time, and he stroked the other side of Cas’s scalp.

 

The feet were a disaster. Cas had the ability to ignore whole zones of his body as if they didn’t exist, a survival trait from childhood. It was not working now.

Dean hissed in reflexive sympathy as the bandages came off. There was a little tinkle, barely audible, and Cas said, “There. Some glass came out.”

“Well thank God for that,” Dean said blankly. “I can’t believe I’ve been ignoring this. Sit tight, I’ll get an evidence bag.” The tweezers were already out on the counter, along with the fresh bandages.

“You have an evidence bag?” Cas exclaimed.

“You wouldn’t believe half the shit I’ve got,” Dean said, in that same level, unrevealing tone. As he watched Dean’s ass disappear around the corner, Cas was inclined to agree.

Despite the pain, he was in a remarkably good mood. And in about oh, four or ten or twenty minutes, as long as it took this perfectionist to do his thing, he’d be lying in bed with Dean, and maybe he’d let Cas do something more than stroke his hair.

Dean’s phone rang as he returned to the washroom.

“Winchester,” he said.

“Hold up, hold up,” he said. “I’m in the middle of doing first aid.” Dean splayed his spare hand, and then started circling his forefinger in the air and rolling his eyes.

“Yeah Garth.”

“No Garth.”

“No Garth.”

“It’s really not — I mean I don’t think — sure. See ya shortly.”

Dean killed the call, put the phone on the bathroom counter and started to curse with fluency and skill. At first it was funny and then Cas became alarmed.

Dean wound down with a final, almost elegiac, “Goddamnit, goddamnit, goddamnit.”

Then he took a deep breath and resumed being Dean Winchester, Fixer of Things. “Let’s get your feet done, we don’t have much time.”

“Before what?”

“Before a Garth Cascade, that’s what. You haven’t lived through a Garth Cascade so lemme just explain it quickly, and of course I’m high so I’ll sound even more stupid than I usually do.” He took another deep breath, feeling his way around what to say.

“Almost forgot,” he said.

He picked up the tweezers and put the glass sliver in the bag

“Garth is another PI. I met him, oh, I dunno, half a dozen years ago. He’s this little ball of energy and brains — vwoot! vwoot! —in a teeny little body. He never shuts up and he never slows down and he thinks that angels and demons and werewolves and vampires are real.” Dean posed like a werewolf and showed all his teeth.

“I thought that if you were a PI you had to at least be _sort_ of rational,” Cas managed.

“Garth’s a damn’ good PI, nobody’s saying he’s not. But his hobby is _nuts_.”

Dean nimbly finished the bandaging. He sat back and said, “He’s gonna walk through that door and _instantly_ he’ll know that the two of us are — “

“Housemates,” Cas said. Nothing exciting about that.

“Who kiss — “ Dean said, wrinkling his brow.

“It was a good solid kiss,” Cas pointed out. “I got a lot out of it.”

“ — and run their fingers through each other’s hair, which now that I think about it almost sounds worse than if we were banging,” Dean said.

“How’s _he_ going to know that?”

Dean was not happy. “I dunno, but he’s got bat’s ears for that shit, so try to fly casual and for sure don’t say a goddamn thing about our sleeping arrangements for tonight or you’ll get a grilling that’ll make you long for a night in jail.”

“Perhaps I’ll tell him to mind his own business.”

“Good luck with that, my sincere best wishes ’n all. He has this way of asking a series of incredibly rude personal questions in rapid succession and just picking you off — I dunno.”

“When does the Garth Cascade begin?”

“Twenty minutes, give or take.”

Cas rose and went to the kitchen. “What does he drink?”

“Aw shit, fuck, goddamnit goddamnit!”

“Now what?” Cas said.

“He doesn’t know I’ve quit drinking. He’ll show up with beer for sure.”

“So? The world is full of alcohol you’ll have to learn to walk past. Tell the truth with no explanation and if he presses change the subject.”

Garth must have been in a hurry; he had no beer with him and was unsurprised to be offered fresh coffee. He was as tiny and energetic as promised, but he did not bombard Cas with questions after they were introduced. He merely studied him closely and then asked to speak privately with Dean.

Cas excused himself to his room.

After about five minutes, during which Garth talked quietly, and with obvious excitement, and Dean said very little, Dean banged on Cas’s bedroom door.

“C’mon out, the crazy man wants to talk to you,” Dean said.

“Dean,” Cas said reprovingly.

“I’m going to run an EMF meter over you,” Garth said. “It’s a detector, it won’t hurt.” The meter needle jumped, and then remained steady as soon as Garth brought it next to Cas’s feet.

Dean got a funny look on his face. “Run it over the glass,” he said, and brought the bag with the sliver of glass in it to Garth.

The meter lit up like a Christmas tree and then the needle stayed at the highest reading Garth had ever seen.

“Well, I’ll be dipped in dogshit,” Garth said. He virtually never swore, so Dean’s eyebrows went up.

“This glass sliver, this is the single most supernatural object I have ever seen. Where did it come from?”

“Fucked if I know,” Dean said.

“I was unconscious, Garth, I literally have no idea,” Cas said, frowning.

Garth made them review the entire first evening, up until the point the cops came the next day.

Garth frowned with concentration. “I’m going to check outside. There’s more glass out there for sure.”

“The cops couldn’t find any.”

“They weren’t looking the way I’m gonna look,” Garth assured him. He was almost vibrating with excitement. He took the EMF meter out in the back yard and within seconds found a piece of glass. Garth put on bright pink neoprene gloves and bagged it. He then found and bagged another, then another. The trail went past the back gate into the park. There were two more large pieces, still with Cas’s blood on them, to all appearances, and Garth bagged those too.

“Those lazy fucks in the PD couldn’t find their ass with both hands,” Dean said, ashamed of himself for not looking more thoroughly.

When all the pieces of glass he could locate were in a series of labelled bags, Garth hung them all together and ran the EMF detector over them. The meter pegged out and stayed there.

“They are capricious, the Lords of the Distant Worlds,” Garth said.

“What?”

“It’s a line from a cutscene in a Warcraft clone,” Garth said. “But it seemed fitting for the occasion. Let’s go back inside.”

Garth sat at the table with his coffee. Dean and Cas refreshed their seltzer waters.

Garth nodded at Dean, “I heard you quit drinking,” he said quietly. “And if you’re wondering how I know, I saw Sam at the hospital.”

“Oh.”

“He called me, and then asked me not to mention it.”

“Oh,” Dean said again. “Yeah, sorry man, I should have told you.”

“It’s okay Dean, I know why you didn’t,” Garth said, and patted his arm.

He turned his attention to Cas. “Cas, I know this is going to sound crazy, but sometime before you arrived in Dean’s yard and after you were kidnapped, you were in the custody of supernatural beings.”

“Garth,” Cas said carefully. “I don’t know how I landed here, but it was not via supernatural means.”

“You sure about that?” Garth said.

Dean and Cas looked at each other.Dean held it in longer than Cas did. They both guffawed, and finally Dean said, “Garth, I love ya man, but I just can’t handle it when you go full Ghostfacers on us.”

“Those two clowns are completely fraudulent,” Garth said with dignity. “This is the real deal.”

He made as if to pack the glass up to take with him.

“Wait a minute!” Cas said, both startled and annoyed. “That evidence is for the police.”

Garth said, “Relax. I won’t contaminate them any further. I need these for non-destructive testing; I’ll be back in the morning with them, none the worse for wear.”

“I’m trusting you,” Dean growled.

“Dean, I have no desire to get on your bad side,” Garth assured him. “I promise I’ll have ‘em back by ten am tomorrow, how’s that?”

Cas and Dean shared another glance.

“You two an item?” Garth asked.

“Told ya,” Dean said. He made no attempt to hide it, Garth’s questions were even more tortuous when he thought he was being lied to.

“We’re roommates,” Cas said.

“Dean’s disagreeing with you, so I’ll leave you to it,” Garth said, and buzzed off into the night. There was a tremendous squeal from the street as his unhappy power steering made its presence known, and he was gone.

Dean said, shaking his head, “Supernatural beings dumped you in my yard.”

“Fits the facts we know so far,” Cas said. “The glass trail starts less than fifty yards from your back gate. There’s no tracks, or tire impressions, no boot or footprints before that, and after the glass starts, there’s just a couple of places where the tops of my feet dragged along the ground, with some vague footprints - obviously I had help, probably two people. At some point I started to walk under my own power, and then I fell down. Wherever I was attacked was probably closer to downtown than here, because that was where the apartment was that he took me to. Without security footage to place me, I could have been anywhere after that.”

Dean looked increasingly uncomfortable. “You don’t believe this shit for one minute now, do you, Cas?”

“No Dean, not for one minute. But I have to admit that I feel like there’s something kind of — meant to be, about my being here.”

They looked at each other.

“I’m heading for bed,” Cas said. “You probably want to watch TV for a while.”

“Yeah,” Dean said slowly. “I can do that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will write for comments. If you ever want these two to have sex, you know what to do.


	10. I never slept with a lumberjack

But he didn’t. He followed Cas into the bathroom, and Cas pointed to the door. Dean pouted, and exited.

“Want me to get the bed warm for you?” Dean said from the other side of the door.

“No way. You are brushing your goddamned teeth or you’re sleeping alone,” Cas said. Dean had warned him about boundaries, and he was going to take him at his word. And when had he started swearing so much?

“You are secretly bossy. Are you secretly bossy other ways?” Dean said.

“Dean, shouting through doors is horrible.”

“Well, lemme in then.”

“Privacy is important to me,” Cas said firmly.

“Can I text you? I forgot to tell you that I got you a burner phone. I’ll slide it under the door. Damn,” Dean said with tender sorrow, “I hate being high — it’s like I’m me, but about two hours late. All the time, in my head.”

“What the hell, Dean, no!” Cas yelped, and yanked on the door handle. “I don’t want a phone!”

“I don’t want you using my business phone for personal calls,” Dean said sulkily. “And I got a screamin’ deal, so — “

“Get out of the bathroom, Dean.”

“Can I at least take a leak?” He was reaching, now, and Cas closed his eyes. He was fucking relentless.

“Sure, let me leave the room,” Cas said.

“I’m being an ass again, aren’t I,” Dean said.

“In your defence, you’re not — you’re not at your best.” That was certainly a charitable interpretation.

“I wonder what my range scores would be like when I’m high. Of course driving to the range to find out would be kinda irresponsible,” Dean said, considering the logistics.

“Are you going to take a leak, now that I’ve left the bathroom?” Cas said suspiciously.

“No,” Dean said. “False alarm. Can we brush teeth side by side?”

“Dean, for the love of _God_. I grew up with five — count ‘em, five — pushing, shoving, assbutt brothers. To be alone in a bathroom is _heaven_ to me. You do not make a bathroom more beautiful.”

“Assbutt?”

“Long story. My point is that roommates don’t follow each other into the bathroom.”

“But we’re more than roommates because you’re letting me sleep with you. As in snore.”

Cas considered this, and gave a brief snort of laughter. “I bet you snore like a lumberjack,” Cas said. “If you must talk to me, leave the door open and stay on that side of it. Dear Universe: This is a _terrible_ compromise.”

“I never slept with a lumberjack,” Dean said after a pause. “I wouldn’t know how to make a comparison. Have you slept with _many_ lumberjacks?” He was now actively being annoying. Again.

“I never slept with a man who self-identified as a lumberjack,” Cas said carefully.

“I bet you never said _that_ before,” Dean said. He was smiling, that sweet smile, so much more heart-stopping than the shit-eating smirk. Dean had so many sweet smiles, and could turn the heat up under any of them.

“Somehow, in all my life,” Cas said, choking back laughter, “I never had to.”

He began to brush his teeth. Dean started putting a toe or a finger, or a nose or, memorably, a nipple, over the artificial boundary that was the doorway. Something in Cas stood up under the battering of Dean’s charm, and toothbrush in mouth, he waggled a finger at Dean and closed the bathroom door.

After a minute he heard the TV come on. Cas was able to finish his evening routine in peace. He changed into the t-shirt and briefs he wore to bed, put on his terry bathrobe and taking a deep breath, went to sit with Dean in the living room.

“I don’t know why you put up with me,” Dean muttered.

“Because I’m not listening to what you say, I’m watching what you do,” Cas said.

Dean nodded, but did not reply.

After about ten minutes of increasingly inane TV, Dean turned it off.

“Can I apologize for using the l-word too early?” Dean asked quietly.

“Nope,” Cas said. “I love you too.”

Dean took a deep breath.

“A day’s worth of love. It’s love made of sugar. It can’t take any weight,” Cas said.

“Oh,” Dean said.

Cas was frowning, but not because he was angry. “I didn’t expect you to say it and I didn’t want you to say it, because it makes things more awkward.”

“That it does,” Dean sighed. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

“I don’t know what you _mean_ by it. Anytime anybody’s told me they love me it’s because they think it’s a way of getting me to do what they want.”

“Right,” Dean said.

“I cry too much,” Cas said.

“Says who?”

“Everyone I’ve ever dated,” Cas said.

“I don’t want you to have a reason to cry,” Dean said. “Ever.”

 _A pretty sentiment, but hardly realistic._ “You didn’t take it personally,” Cas said, “When I cried.”

“You explained it pretty well,” Dean said.

“I have nightmares too often and I deliberately disturb other people’s sleep, because it has to be deliberate, or I would have gotten drugs to stop the nightmares by now,” Cas said. He was running through the list of things partners had said.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Dean said. “That’s just _ignorant_.”

“I’m prissy. I’m stuck up. I think my manners are better than everyone else’s. I think I’m smarter and kinder and more of an adult than everyone else. I don’t know how to let go and enjoy myself. I enjoy being a martyr and a victim. And by the way, that was after two years of psychotherapy, back when I had coverage. I should just get over my childhood abuse… give my head a shake and keep going. Did you know,” Cas continued in that same conversational tone, “That to this day my brothers blame me for my parents’ deaths? If my mother hadn’t pushed me out of the car my father wouldn’t have been so angry at my mother than he drove over that guard rail. When I pointed out that I was an orphan now too, Gabe said that I hated Father so much more than I loved Mom that it probably seemed like a fair bargain to me.”

Dean turned his head. Their faces were inches apart. He turned back to look at the blank TV screen and fumbled for one of Cas’s hands.

Their hands felt warm and comforting and undemanding. Both of them sat with that for a while.

Cas started talking again.

“I’ll only take off my shirt to get medical attention. I’m a hypochondriac - and I loathe hospitals. Loud voices make me shut down. If you ever yell _and_ throw things I’ll probably hide in my room, and if I’m feeling strong enough I’ll leave, maybe permanently. The smell of alcohol on a man’s breath terrifies and nauseates me.” Dean stiffened at this. “No one I’ve ever loved has ever loved me back so that I felt safe. Desired and desirable and lovable, but never safe. I’m a homebody and I’m boring and I’m a nag and I never want to go out dancing. I want to get married and adopt kids,” and here Dean jumped again, but Cas was expecting it and didn’t take it personally, “mostly because I think there’s no way in hell I could do a worse job than my parents - I loved my mother, but she didn’t protect me - and partly because there’s a gay or trans kid out there who needs a friend desperately and I want to be that person. I’m not a big fan of violence and explosions and noise and arguments and I will literally start to shake if I hear racial abuse or see children and animals being hurt.”

Cas was breathing fast, but he’d kept his voice level.

Dean said, after a very charged silence, “Thanks for telling me. All that.”

“There’s more.”

“There’s always more,” Dean said, with the ghost of a laugh.

“You terrify me. In a good way, you’re very attractive, but also in a bad way. If you start drinking again, everything will implode in two seconds. If you ever raise a hand to me, or threaten me in what I interpret is a non-joking way, or use the car to terrify me, or confine me, or hold me down or try to choke me, or do anything to me sexually without my explicit consent, you will never see me again.”

Dean was breathing very hard by the end of this speech.

“What if,” he said, “What if I accidentally hit you during a nightmare?”

“That doesn’t count,” Cas said. “But I’ll be upset.”

“Me too,” Dean said. “Maybe I should just drop this idea of — you know, it was a dumb idea, and a selfish one.”

“I’d think so too if I wasn’t looking forward to it so much,” Cas said casually. He gave Dean’s hand a squeeze and a shake.

“You are?” Dean said hopefully.

“Well, not until you brush your teeth,” Cas said. “And floss, too, if you don’t mind.”

“Such a nag,” Dean breathed. “Oh, your phone.” He fished it out of his pocket.

“Stop spending money on me.”

“Yessir.”

“Why haven’t you cashed my check?” Cas nagged.

“I’ll deposit it as soon as the bank opens,” Dean said. “I kinda have to, now that fat retainer went ‘poof’.”

“When’s the last time you saw a doctor?”

“Oh Jesus.”

“No, _Cas_ , although I can understand your confusion. You’ve never lived through one of my naggings, so I thought I’d limber up.”

“Can you wait until I’m not high any more? Time dilation will make the nagging stretch on, and on, and on….” Dean said.

“People who nag always catch you at a moment of weakness,” Cas pointed out.

“So basically what you’re telling me is that if I am serious about you I will get nagged _all the time_.”

“No. Merely when you’re doing something obviously wrong,” Cas said.

“Jesus,” Dean said again. “So, like, all the time, then.”

“That’s the consensus, yes,” Cas said.

“I think maybe if I go to sleep with you right now you’ll quit nagging me,” Dean said.

“Or I could continue my litany of how I would be the worst possible partner for you in every conceivable way. I haven’t even gotten to how you being bi makes me feel.”

“Oh boy,” Dean said quietly. He took a breath and let it out slowly.

“But I think I’ll wait until you’re not high any more,” Cas said, seeing — and feeling — how Dean was taking it.

“I think I need to hear this now, when I’m a little bit numb.”

“I’ve been thinking about it, Dean,” Cas said.

“You said you would,” Dean said with resignation.

“I realized that you being bi was not what was freaking me out. What was freaking me out was whether or not you’re monogamous. Then I realized something really, really important. We wouldn’t last long enough anyway for me to get worried about it, so it’s an imaginary problem. I’m _not_ going to worry about any of it, or the things you said that scared me. You were honest with me, and I appreciate it. We may be really attracted to one another but we’re not very compatible.”

Dean squirmed. He wanted to say something, and drew breath a couple of times. Each time he sagged back. After a minute he gently let go of Cas’s hand and stood.

“I’m going to go brush my teeth,” Dean said.

The bathroom door closed. After five minutes, Dean emerged, went straight to his own bedroom and quietly closed the door.

Cas realized that in his desire to sound a lot tougher than he was, he might have overdone it.

When he knocked on Dean’s door, he expected Dean to yell at him through it. Instead, Dean opened the door, wild-eyed, and said, in a deadly quiet voice, “Happy now?”

His eyes were wet. Cas went straight to him and put his arms around him. “I’m so scared, I am so scared, it makes me… I don’t know.”

Dean said, into his neck, “Don’t leave. Just, please, give me a chance. It would be my privilege to be nagged by you for the rest of my life.”

“Seriously Dean, you should learn to give a more effective compliment,” Cas nagged, but there was a thread of humor in Cas’s voice, and Dean relaxed.

“See, nagging me again, I must be important to you. Are we sleeping in here tonight?”

“My room is closer to the bathroom,” Cas said. His hands tightened just a little over the small of Dean’s back. One of the bites on his chest was complaining, but nothing else. His blood hummed and sang in his veins.

Dean said, “And the bed is bigger. Had to buy it for that Sasquatch brother of mine.”

They moved into Cas’s room, pretending that they were sophisticated adults, and not teenagers creeping into a closet to neck, which was closer to how it felt. Cas hung up his bathrobe and got straight into bed. Dean peeled off his clothes and put them on the chair.

“Dean,” Cas said.

Silently, Dean put the shirts and socks in the laundry basket. Then he turned off the overhead light and got into the side nearest him. Cas shifted away from the edge to give him room.

Dean said, “Are we gonna try to come up with some kind of quid pro quo on who’s the big spoon?”

Cas said, “May I - may I rest my head on your shoulder?”

Cas felt a warm, muscular arm shelter him, and melted against Dean’s skin. His heart thumped, but not uncomfortably fast. Dean’s heart was almost steady. A little fast maybe. Okay, more than a little. Dean worked on his breathing. This whole mess was his fault. He should have taken Cas to hospital and left him there. 

_As — fucking — if._

“Comfy?” Dean murmured.

“You smell - “

“Moment of truth,” Dean broke in. “Sorry man, I’m high.”

“I was going to say,” Cas said, putting his right hand on Dean’s sternum, “pleasant and intriguing.”

“Pleasant and intriguing?” Dean’s disbelief was palpable.

“I was trying to be — accurate without gushing,” Cas said, very embarrassed.

Cas thought Dean was annoyed with him, and fell into the silence of self-doubt. It got more and more awkward for Cas. He was startled when Dean spoke.

“Thank you for trusting me,” Dean said. He gave an almost imperceptible squeeze around Cas’s shoulders.

“Thank you for coming home when you needed to,” Cas said. “It means a lot to me.” He gently moved his hand over Dean’s heart.

Dean’s hand came up and caught his wrist, and just as swiftly released it. “No fondling. You said no funny stuff, remember?”

“It’s still inside the canoodling boundary.”

“You got lawyers in your ancestry?” Dean griped. “Anyplace you touch me, I get to touch you.”

“I see your point. I’m being very unfair,” Cas said, and pulled away, lying on his back, his only comfortable sleeping position. “Good night and pleasant dreams.”

“Two seconds ago you were okay with canoodling.”

“Yeah, when it was me doing stuff to you and you not being able to respond. I realized that was unfair so I backed off.”

“What if you could just play with me and I have to stay still for it,” Dean said. “Level the playing field.”

Castiel almost laughed.

“I’m a dope, but I’m not that big a dope,” he said.

Silence fell.

Strangely, they both slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want more? Drop a line!


	11. Prayer meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garth reinterviews the witness Dean didn't know they had. Dean clarifies their relationship status to Cas's satisfaction. Dean's neighbor makes a confession.

Around four am, Dean got up. He wandered around the house aimlessly, took a leak, and thought about going back to bed. Normally he’d do paperwork, watch tv, or head out to the 24-hour gym when he woke up before dawn, but the temptation to lie down next to Cas again pulled at him as he stood, irresolute, in front of Cas’s door.

Cas’s voice, half a tone above a croak, addressed him from the bedclothes. “Dean, did you not wash your hands?”

“Sorry I woke you,” Dean said. He ambled back into the washroom and washed his hands.

“Do you feel like sleeping some more?” Cas asked.

“Mm.” Dean considered it some more. “You know what? Yeah, I do.” He lay back down and tried to snuggle up to Cas. “Oh, you’re nice and warm.” The way he said warm was like an audible hug.

“And unconscious, Dean, don’t forget unconscious,” Cas said, yawning. “That’s - that feels nice.”

Dean’s forehead was resting, very gently, against the Not So Sore shoulder, and his hands clasped Cas’s right hand. Children snuggled in bed could lie like this, and it was affectionate, comfort-seeking. Dean’s breathing slowed.

He was asleep again in minutes. It was remarkable - how fast he could fall asleep when he set his mind to it. Cas followed suit.

 

When Dean next woke, he heard a rattle, and then footsteps in the hall.

“What the hell?” he muttered.

“I think it’s Sam,” Cas muttered back. He gestured for Dean to go under the covers.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Dean said quietly into his hand. “And what is this, we’re talking under the covers at a sleepover?”

“No; just trying to keep the volume down. What’s wrong?” Cas said.

“I’m in your bedroom. If I go out now Sam will see and there’ll be hell to pay.”

“You weren’t doing anything wrong, or for that matter anything that’s his business,” Cas said, yawning impressively.

“ _However_ Sam sees things, he’ll _care_.”

“Brazen it out and if he’s rude ask him to leave,” Cas said, without much sympathy.

“Shit,” Dean said. He threw the covers off just as Sam knocked on Dean’s bedroom door.

Dean stalked out of Cas’s bedroom in Cas’s blue bathrobe and went to the kitchen to make coffee.

Sam, who had turned down the hall to watch his brother’s very obvious departure from his old room, suddenly realized that they might have switched rooms and said, “Sorry,” to Dean’s bedroom door, thinking Cas was behind it.

Cas, in socked feet, jeans and a t-shirt, emerged from his room, smiled sleepily at Sam and said, “Good morning.” He went into the bathroom and closed the door.

He looked like pixies had been having an orgy in his hair. Minus the glitter, of course.

Sam swiftly covered the distance between him and Dean, who was rubbing sleep from his eyes in front of the kitchen sink.

Sam hissed, “Hey, what’s happening here?”

“Coffee. That’s what’s happening.” Dean could smell Cas on the bathrobe and smiled to himself.

“Did you spend the night in Cas’s room?” Sam asked slowly.

When Dean didn’t say anything, Sam felt disgust, and disappointment. His voice was not loud, but his words cut. “How can you take advantage of someone who’s homeless and jobless and, and everything else?”

Dean turned his back on the kitchen counter to face his brother, and braced himself against it. “Take advantage of Cas? Have you _met_ him? – world’s most impressive setter of boundaries! Besides, he’s not homeless, he _lives_ here. He’s jobless because he’s recovering from being attacked, and I know exactly what he’s recovering from, thanks! Why do you think I’d do something to make that worse? He wanted some human contact, and I hugged him. Do you think they’ll come for my manliness card?”

Dean pretended to sag in a faint, and put the back of one hand up to his forehead. Then he straightened and gave his brother a knowing look. “I know you think this situation is weird but it’s _not_ your problem.”

Dean finished preparing the coffee and pressed the start button. He sat down at the kitchen table in time to catch Cas’s eye as he came out of the bathroom. Sadly, his hair was no longer a lilting paean to morning sex. There had been no morning sex, but Cas’s hair didn’t seem to know that.

Cas paused. He was limping, but not too bad.

“I can start breakfast,” Cas said.

“I’m fine,” Sam said quickly.

“I want Eggos,” Dean said.

“Dean,” Cas said. There was reproof in his voice, and something else.

“I want Eggos goddamnit,” Dean said in his growliest voice.

To Sam’s astonishment, Cas and Dean both started to laugh.

“You’re getting a breakfast wrap with salsa,” Cas said, wrinkling his nose at Dean.

“You’re ruining my life,” Dean said. Cas was licking his lips in concentration, and Dean thought Cas was so hot he might possibly grunt like a caveman in appreciation.

“That’s the plan,” Cas said, assembling ingredients. “So anyway, Sam, did you need to chat with Dean privately?”

“Cas, I’m sorry I - I realize now everything is fine here.”

“Everything is weird here, but it’s also fine,” Cas said.

“Weird,” Sam said.

“Will you tell him? Or shall I?” Cas said. He yawned again. He was so cute when he yawned that Dean began to think of having a law made against it.Cas had almost perfect teeth, and that yawn had been nothing short of an invitation to sling Cas over one shoulder (not that his knees could take it, but whatever) and ravage him.

Dean said, “You need to know something very special about Cas.” He said it as if he was going to make a formal announcement.

“What?” Sam said, concerned.

“He was dumped here by aliens,” Dean said in his growliest voice.

“Or possibly some, er, supernatural beings,” Cas said.

“What?” Sam said. His confusion was tangible.

The doorbell rang.

“Jeez! Who could that be?” Sam said blankly.

“Well, it can’t be the brother that I already told not to show up without calling,” Dean said with an edge. “So it must be Garth, here _way_ earlier than expected.”

Dean leapt up to answer the door. Garth could be heard saying excitedly, “We need to talk right now, Dean.”

He paused as he saw Sam sitting in the living room. “Hullo Sam,” Garth said, recognizing Dean’s brother. “Cas,” he nodded.

“We should speak privately,” Garth said.

“No secrets here!” Dean said cheerfully. Sam gave him a dirty look.

“Dean, I just wanted to start out by saying I’m disappointed in you.”

“I’d tell you to join the club but the line-up’s too long,” Dean said apologetically.

Cas gave a little cat-like grin and then his face assumed its normal expression.

“No. Seriously. Since when do you trust the DPD?” Garth asked, shaking his head with phoney pity.

“I don’t.”

“Then you should have re-interviewed the witnesses.”

“There weren’t any,” Dean said. He sat down again at the kitchen table.

“But there were! Mrs. Davis saw the whole thing.”

“What?” Dean exclaimed.

Cas turned the stove burners off and stood next Dean at the kitchen table. Sam and Garth both saw Dean stroke Cas’s thigh comfortingly with the back of his hand, and shared a glance of “ _Did I see that?_ ”

Garth spoke to Sam, but he meant it for everyone in the room.

“What I’m about to tell you is completely contrary to the laws of physics as we now know them,” Garth said portentously.

“Spit it out, Garth,” Dean said. He was not having any of Garth’s normal loquacity.

“I re-interviewed Mrs. Davis, your next door neighbour - “

“When?” Dean asked.

“Just now.” Garth paused for dramatic emphasis. “She completely changed her story, and what I am about to tell you is utterly shocking.”

There were three loud metallic bangs on the screen door.

The four men looked at each other in surprise.

“Don’t answer that - “ Garth said. Dean laughed. What was Garth expecting, the aliens who’d dumped Cas to come knocking? According to him they didn’t _need_ fucking doors.

“I’m dressed,” Cas said, and got up to answer the door.

Mrs. Davis, Dean’s elderly and somewhat short-tempered next door neighbor, was standing on the porch in a housedress with a cane in her hand.

“You’re the young man from the yard,” she said, seeing Cas. “Is there a prayer meeting going on here? I see this many white people going into a house at this hour I figure it’s a prayer meeting for sure, all welcome.”

She pushed her way past Cas and addressed Garth.

“Fitzgerald, you little weasel! Did I give you permission to come over here and talk to Mr. Winchester!”

“It wasn’t an off the record conversation, ma’am,” Garth said.

Sam intervened in the hopes of a) slowing down the incipient rumble and b) figuring out what the hell was going on. “Hi, Mrs. Davis.”

“Oh, hi there, Sam,” Mrs. Davis said.

Sam said, “Maybe you could tell us what you saw.”

“Better than listening to this little jackass muck it up,” Mrs. Davis said.Garth scowled but didn’t respond. “None of you are going to believe a word of this anyway - except you,” she said, scowling back at Garth. She sat down, hard, in one of the equally hard kitchen chairs, across from Cas.

Without preamble, Mrs. Davis described what she had seen.

“I was upstairs the night in question and looked out the bathroom window and saw a light appear in the park, like how much light you get off a big Christmas tree, except it was blue, and had these sparkly white tornadoes all around it. It disappeared. I see two men in hoods, a tall one and a taller one, under the yard light next door, drag this one,” and here she indicated Cas with her chin, “naked as a jaybird and covered in dried blood, into the Winchester yard. I know they were tall because the tallest one had to duck his head under the trellis to come in and the shorter one just barely passed under it. They dumped this one on the ground, none too gently I must say, and then the two of them got into an argument. I opened the window hoping to hear them, but I didn’t hear too much, and anything I heard didn’t sound much like English.”

 

You could have heard a pin drop in Dean’s house.

 

“They continue on arguing and then the shorter one puts his hand on the taller one’s shoulder and that blue light with the little white tornadoes comes up and when it’s gone, so are they, and this one’s still there.” The same jerk of the chin indicated Cas.

“I go to call the police and then I think maybe I just hallucinated the whole thing. I’m over eighty, and sometimes I hear and see things that just aren’t there. This was just too weird for me. I mean I can hallucinate the Ronald McDonald clown statue talking to me about my dead brother, which was strange but not really unpleasant, and it doesn’t bother me any more …takes a while to get used to it, but something weird like this, I didn’t know what to think. And I also know they’re not going to listen to a damn thing I say if my doc says I went in to see him last month about hearing things. So I fidgeted a while and while I’m thinking I should really call the police I pour myself some iced tea. I didn’t want the police thinking I’m a strange old woman, you get tired of that after a while, and then I remember there’s an injured man down there who needs help while I’m fussing so I go to the window again and the hurt man’s gone.”

“So — I’m sorry I didn’t call the police. But until the police arrived the next day, I thought I’d imagined the whole thing! — and once they were in my home, I knew that if I _had_ seen anything the next nosy question they were going to ask was, why I didn’t call an ambulance when a man who was hurt was dumped in my neighbor’s yard? I felt so guilty about that I didn’t say anything.”

There was a pause.

“Are you going to tell the police?” Mrs. Davis asked.

They all looked at each other. Dean’s immediate reaction was ‘ _Not a chance_ ’ but he said nothing, choosing to wait on Cas. Finally Cas spoke. “Unless a witness is required for a trial, no.”

“Will you forgive me for not calling them?”

“Yes,” Castiel said. Mrs. Davis awkwardly tried to stand, and in a flash Cas was standing next to her and helping her up.

“I’ll be on my way then.” At the door she looked at Cas. “You boys queer?” she asked. She looked past him at Dean.

Cas frowned at her.

Mrs. Davis gave a very strange smile and said, “You know, my husband was a queer and he never told me. I kinda wish he had before we got married. I think my life might have been better.” She left.

After a pause, Sam said, “Wow.”

“Wow indeed,” Garth said. “So what is going on with you two, anyway?”

Dean and Cas looked at each other.

Cas returned to the kitchen and started working on breakfast. “I’m going to defer to Dean on that,” he said.

“We’re dating,” Dean said promptly.

“Works for me,” Cas said calmly.

“How long have you been into guys?” Garth asked, obviously having trouble with the studly Dean being… well… _that_ way.

“How long have you been short?” Dean responded, irritated.

“Dean,” Cas said with reproach.

“So my brother is dating the guy aliens dumped in the back yard,” Sam said.

Cas sniffed.

“You all done?” Dean asked. “Can we go back to our weird little lives now?” He shooed Garth and his brother out, and then ate, with every sign of enjoyment, the breakfast wrap Cas had made him.

“Hell of a prayer meeting,” Dean said. “Siddown, Cas, take a load off. You given any thought about what you want to say tonight, if anything?”


	12. Pie. Pie. Pie. Pie. Pie. Pie.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Does pie fix everything? Who is the obviously magical being who appears in Dean's livingroom and why does he heal Cas's injuries?

Cas sat, relief on his face. His expression changed to one of mild suspicion.

“I was planning to say whatever came into my head when it was my turn,” Cas said.

“Really?” Dean said. He was fidgeting more noticeably than usual and avoiding eye contact.

“I was unconscious, mostly,” Cas said, “so I’ll probably talk about how I felt afterward, and since you’re a big part of that, I guess I’ll end up talking about you.”

“Oh,” Dean said.

There was a long pause. Dean, who had been so happy a minute ago, was now perturbed.

“Does that bother you?”

“I - no, of course not, it’s your, your truth.” Dean was almost rattling in his chair.

Cas narrowed his eyes. “Dean, are you thinking of joining me at the survivor’s group?”

“Yes,” Dean said. The quiet voice was a contrast to the fidgeting.

“You know that it’s only for survivors, not survivors and allies?”

“Yes,” Dean said, even more quietly.

Cas’s heart started to pound.

Dean stood, checked for his keys and said, “I think that’s a good idea, Cas. What you said. I’ll just say whatever comes into my head, and I won’t worry about it until then.”

“Dean,” Cas whispered.

He was (finally) looking at him. Cas tried to read the expressions that passed over his housemate’s mobile face; sadness, a little quirk of the lips that looked like an apology, and then resolution.

“Dean, are you okay?” Cas said at a normal volume.

“It was a long time ago,” Dean said.

“Are you okay? Okay, okay? Okay to drive, do your job?” Cas asked, with more emphasis.

“No problem. I’ve been living with it a long time. Ten hours more won’t kill me. Are _you_ okay?” Dean asked, suddenly aware of someone else’s distress.

“ _No_ , Dean, I now have this horrible idea stuck in my head that somebody _hurt_ you and — “

Dean sounded calm now. “I gotta work today. If I start talking about it now, we’re both fucked. It has to wait until the end of the day and we can come home and bawl our eyes out if we have to.”

“Is it that bad?” Cas said, stupidly. Of course it was, or Dean wouldn’t have mentioned it without joking about it.

“I dunno. I don’t know. I’m no longer scared shitless to talk about it to you. Just scared.” His gaze slid across the living room without really taking anything in. “It’s talking to Sam about it that’s gonna kill me.”

“One crisis at a time, I guess,” Cas said slowly.

“I’m going to work now,” Dean said.

“Are you going to kiss me goodbye?” Cas asked. The tone was gently chiding.

Dean’s expression changed from unease to something almost - wait, was that a shadow of his usual rubbery smirk?

“Aw,” he said. “Do I hafta?”

Cas almost laughed. The phoney reluctance was beyond adorable. “It’s customary. My feet hurt enough at the moment that trotting out to the door with you for a 50’s style smooch is not in the cards.”

“I don’t want to get this wrong,” Dean said. The smile was genuine. “How do you want me to handle this? I know you’re a hopeless romantic.”

“Is ‘no tongue’ too specific for you?” Cas said, pursing his lips.

“Okay,” Dean said. With something approaching his normal, relaxed body language, he walked behind Cas, put his hands gently on his shoulders, below any pain points, and bent himself to press a kiss into the right side of Cas’s neck.

That side of his body lit up with pleasure. Cas gasped. Dean teased him further, caressing his hair for the scantest second. Arousal filled every vein and nerve in Cas’s body.

“Have a good day,” Dean said cheerfully. He made to leave, and then turned in the doorway. Reading Cas’s expression perfectly, he said, “Relax. I’m gonna kiss you other places, too.” The door clicked, and the key turned in the lock.

“Oh my god, you total _bastard_ ,” Cas said to the door.

He felt stunned and aroused and messed up, and more than a little mad at Dean, first for dropping the survivor bombshell, and second for that kiss.

A minute after the door closed Cas was still vibrating with sensations he couldn’t name.

He took a deep breath and stood. His feet were both singing a long one-note aria in clashing keys, so he decided to lie down.

Cas could normally nap at any time; going back to sleep after breakfast had been one of his favorite activities as soon as he started living on his own. Now, of course, the ceiling looked like that knowing smile Dean had thrown at him on the way out the door - after scaring him half to death.

 _He said, ‘_ It was a long time ago’ _._

That kiss. Who the hell could compress that much **_I’m on fire_** into a half-second kiss? Not even on the _lips_? Dean ‘I know _exactly_ what I’m doin’ to ya’ Winchester, _that_ was who.

A plan began to form in his mind.

Cas wanted to jerk off ASAP, but this time he wanted lube. While Dean had provided him with a large percentage of his needs, including the world’s hottest roommate, lube had not been supplied with the toothpaste.

Cas considered whether the _mi casa es su casa_ rule applied when you were rummaging around in your host’s bedside table for goop to pleasure yourself with and remembered that Dean had, in fact, said his house was Cas’s – twice. They had even discussed whether or not Cas could move furniture to better suit his aesthetics. Looking around for lube was probably legit.

He took a sock out of his laundry for the come and a t-shirt to mop up the lube and made the transgressively hot decision that yes, he was going to jerk off on Dean’s bed. Then he would wait until a lull in the conversation, and take his revenge for that kiss ( _what the_ ** _hell_** _, Dean!_ ) by telling him all about it.

It was awkward and that one shoulder still hurt like hell, so it took longer than he expected, but that just meant that he had longer to think about Dean.

He put his face into a pillow and imagined Dean kissing him, deep, breathless kisses that tasted, from that tiny little mind-bending sample, like salted caramel, and he thought about Dean’s gorgeous fingers enclosing his shaft while his lips wrapped around the head of his cock, and then thought about Dean’s finger in his mouth, and his breath in his ear – how making love with him would be a stunning barrage of sensation. He could feel Dean’s hands on his ass as he imagined Dean coming all over Cas’s stomach, and while thinking about that, Cas came into the sock.

He lay there for a while, feeling suddenly guilty as he mopped himself off with his t-shirt. It was an invasion of Dean’s privacy, and he should be ashamed of himself. He heaved a great sigh and realized that probably Dean would do nothing more embarrassing than laugh uproariously if Cas told him, and decided that the way around this was to do something so nice for Dean that his questionable judgement about where to unreel his trouser snake could be forgiven.

He heaved himself onto his feet and washed his hands.

A great light dawned.

Pie.

Pie was the answer. Cas rose and went to the kitchen. He checked the ingredients list against the recipes and then he examined the cupboards for pie filling.

Dean seem to have gone a little nuts at the grocery store, buying three cans of blueberry pie filling alone. Two cans of peach pie filling, two cans of cherry pie filling and two cans of lemon pie filling rounded out Dean’s somewhat over-the-top response to being tantalized by pie.

Cas looked at them all and laughed. It still hurt to laugh that hard, but darn, it seemed worth it.

It seemed obvious that he should make a blueberry pie since that did seem to be the minimum. But he’d hinted at making more than one. The question was: how far down the pie baking rathole was he prepared to go?

The question was not HOW MUCH PIE, because that was a meaningless question. If the answer to that question, at least as far as Dean was concerned, was “all of it” or, “more of it” or “a never ending supply of it” then it was Cas’s capacity to bake pie that was the hold-up, since he’d reviewed the supplies required and there were ten one-use pie tins, and everything else required to bake pie.

He turned the oven on.It appeared to be working.

He tried to think of whatever else could go wrong.

Cas gathered all the ingredients and baking equipment at the kitchen table so he could sit as he worked, and began to make pies.

He decided at the outset to make the blueberry pies a science experiment. He was, after all, making pies with three different kinds of crust, and if one had identical filling one could figure out which crust was best. So, three blueberry pies and one each of the other fillings.

Time passed. He could hear himself humming, and smiled, since he only did that when he was a) happy and b) busy. Boyfriends had chided him about it, not understanding what a compliment it was.

It was harder to roll dough out sitting down than he expected and he resolved to design a kitchen table that anybody could be comfortable at. While he measured and cut lard into flour, and eyeballed how much of everything that should go where, he thought about what a really welcoming kitchen table would look like. Wood, or something like it. Able to seat six, at least two of whom were in wheelchairs. Some get old, some get sick. And able to accommodate any current human being. He got flour on his tablet as he looked up the shortest and tallest human beings.It gave him a lot to think about. He’d always had a knack for manipulating shapes in his mind. It would be a fun little project to kick around to keep his brain awake as he recovered.

He tried very hard not to think about what the neighbor had said.

 

If he’d been dumped here by magic, maybe he could disappear by magic too. And never see Dean again.

 

He shoved the thought away with all the mental force he could manage.

 

Cas got a little assembly line going, and the pies went into the oven, and he thought he’d earned a rest so he stretched out on the sofa. He had set the timer on the oven, but just in case he set the timer on the tablet.

His cell phone rang; it was Dean.

“Hullo,” Cas said.

“I was thinking about coming home for lunch,” Dean said.

“I can have something ready in about forty-five minutes,” Cas said.

“Really?”

“As long as I can take a nap after, I’m beat already.”

“What have you been doing to yourself?” Dean asked, teasing.

“I jerked off in your bed,” Cas said, “I did _that_ to myself.”

There was a pause.

Dean said, a tiny catch in his breath, “And why would you be doing that?”

“Wouldn’t your bed automatically be the sexiest place in your house? I mean, for the sake of — inspiration.”

There was another little pause. Cas heard the car go into park and the engine shut off.

“If I was forced to say where the sexiest place in the house is, I’d have to say whichever room you’re in right now,” Dean said.

“You make a good point,” Cas said. “I’ve changed my mind to say that your bed is the sexiest place in your house when you’re not here.”

Cas could hear the amusement and the arousal in the breath Dean took. He didn’t know how he knew, or perhaps it was wishful thinking. Dean said, “I’m going to spend some quality time with the pale-eyed fish-boy that runs accounts at Sam’s firm, and then I’m going to mosey on home.”

“Okay,” Cas said. “See you soon.” He could always nap after lunch.

There were a couple of chicken breasts thawed in the fridge. Cas stood to tenderize those at the counter and was very glad he’d downed two candies. Everything would be immobilized in pain without it.

He made chicken schnitzel with the ‘two freezer bags’ dodge. He didn’t have to stand to fry them, at least not very much, and when that was done he stuck them in the toaster oven to stay warm.

He did manage to get to the front door. He stood on the front step, the first time he’d done so by himself since he’d come to Dean’s house. He wanted to find out what the house would smell like when Dean walked into it. It was worth the trouble it took him. The house smelled incredible. Cas looked forward to Dean’s reaction with a little smirk on his face.

 

He thought he’d make Dean get the pies out of the oven, if he turned up at the right time. He did have a timing thing going on, that Dean.

There was a salad in the fridge. In the time he’d known him Cas couldn’t tell whether Dean liked salad and showed it by _complaining_ about salad, or just hated salad and forced himself to eat it because the alternative of being nagged about it was worse. Given the volume of salad he ate, he suspected the former. Or maybe Dean was a master at self-punishment, that was another strong possibility.

The pies were about twenty minutes from done when Dean came through the door.

“Sorry I just had the feeling I should - my God, what smells so good!?”

“Oh,” said Cas. “Pie.”

“You made pie.”

“Yes. It should be ready soon.”

Dean almost skipped to the oven, it was so cute Cas grinned like an idiot.

“Cas,” Dean said.

“Yes, Dean,” Cas said.

“Why are there half a dozen pies in the frickin’ oven?”

“Nothing exceeds like excess.”

“You are the man of my dreams,” Dean said. He sank onto the floor and looked at the pies baking with a dazed smile.

“You can plate lunch if you want to,” Cas said. “I really don’t feel like getting up. The schnitzel’s in the toaster oven and there’s salad for a side.”

Dean popped to his feet like a jack-in-the-box and got lunch on the table. He took one bite of the schnitzel and groaned in ecstasy.

“This is fan-fucking-tastic.”

“The only problem is that you’ll probably have to leave before the pie is cooled enough to cut,” Cas said, frowning.

“Hush your mouth. I’m having some anyway. What kind did you make?”

“They’re all fruit pies, three of them are blueberry.”

“Oh god, three blueberry pies, I’ll be shitting blue.”

“Yuck.”

 

As soon as Cas said “Yuck”, a wiggly blue line of light appeared in the living room. Stunned, the two men watched as it widened and stretched until it was a slender oval of shiny blue, through which a man stepped.

He was of medium height, and sported a dark beard and an extremely expensive suit.

“Hullo boys,” he said in a drawling English accent. He ambled toward Cas, who shrank down in his chair.

Dean rose and stood behind Cas. “You can’t have him.”

“Relax, Squirrel, I only need him for a second, and you can watch if you want to,” the man said suggestively. “You two, honestly. I’m not taking your special friend anywhere right now, Squirrel, but I might need to borrow him.”

Dean was forced away from Cas as if by magic. He growled and fought against invisible restraints.

The man forced Cas to his feet and stripped him to the waist by magic. Cas made an embarrassed moan of protest.

“Gracious,” the man said, seeing the bites. He walked around Cas and saw the scars on his back. “This will never do.” He waved his hand in a sharp gesture, and all the scars and wounds vanished.

“Was it you who did this to me?” Cas managed.

“Why would I heal you, if that were the case?” the man responded, as if Cas was a half-wit. He didn’t seem to be focussed on Cas at all. He was looking around the room with a frown.

“I may need to borrow you again to pretend to be who you ended up being in an alternate universe. For that to work I need you to be free of scars and wounds… in any event it may not come to that.”

“So you may kidnap me and you may not,” Cas said, “For your own purposes. Did you heal me of _everything_?”

The man checked and looked at Cas properly. “Yes,” he said shortly. “I’m trying to save not just _this_ universe but a number of others as well,” the man added with some asperity. “In the meantime, please do continue to play house, it’s too adorable. Now I really must skedaddle, boys,” the man said. “Try not to leave town; if I have to hunt for you I’ll be very annoyed when I catch you,” and with that, the blue oval of the portal reopened, he walked through, and he and the portal vanished.

“He healed my feet,” Cas said, pulling up one slender foot and examining it with wonder.

“Who the fuck _was_ that guy?” Dean said.

“I have no idea,” Cas said.

“You know what this means, right?” Dean said, a smile breaking across his face.

“That I can be kidnapped at any moment?” Cas said with fear and anger.

“Well yeah, but….” Dean said. He fluttered his eyelashes at Cas.

“Oh,” Cas said.

Cas’s alarm for the pies went off.

“Don’t get up,” Dean said, and pulled them out.

“Half a dozen pies,” he said, chuckling to himself as he did so.

“You’re going to burn your mouth,” Cas said, watching Dean savage one of the blueberry pies.

“And you can kiss it better,” Dean said.


	13. Survivors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Male and Male-Identifying Survivors of Sexual Assault group meets, and Dean tells his story for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not a fluffy chapter. Content warning for gang-rape and threatened death.  
> Explicit survivor's view of Dean's sexual assault as a young man of 17. If you or a loved one is a male survivor of sexual abuse, please contact 1in6.org and http://www.malesurvivor.org and check into local organizations if you can.

By unspoken mutual agreement neither of them spoke about the survivor support group until shortly before it was time to go. They had a subdued dinner - Dean brought Chinese takeout home - and sat very close to each other on the sofa.

“You still good with this?” Dean asked hesitantly.

“No, but I won’t be bullied by my own fears,” Cas said.

“Huh,” Dean said. “That’s an interesting way to put it.”

They continued to be subdued but not tense with each other until they got to the church.

They were warmly welcomed by Mike, the group co-ordinator, who was a sweet-faced middle-aged man with a perfect silver mop of hair.There were nine men, including Cas and Dean. The youngest was in his early twenties; the oldest was a spry retiree, and not every man in the room was white.

Mike explained the rules of the group; they gave their first names around the circle in a check-in; they had a group meditation, which seemed to unnerve Dean but made Cas feel better, and then the sharing began.

When it came time for Cas to speak, he said, simply, “Last week I was sexually assaulted, tortured and dumped, unconscious, in someone’s back yard,” and almost everyone in the circle gasped.

“I know, it sounds really bad. But I don’t _really_ know what happened to me because I was unconscious for almost all of it, and I don’t remember any part of the assault. Physically I am recovering well. Emotionally - my sense of safety has been kicked out from under me.”

“It’s possible that over time I may remember what happened, but it’s more likely that I never will. I’m here because I want to figure out what I need to do to look after myself, and for a reminder that healing is possible.” He fell silent.

“That’s really all I want to say right now.”

 

More men spoke. They spoke about being assaulted as children by stepfathers, priests, teachers, coaches. They spoke about their anger, their hypersexuality, their drinking, their doping. They spoke about broken relationships and family secrets; fathers who didn’t protect and mothers who lied and siblings who told them to shut up with all the drama.

They spoke about grief. They peeled back layers of shame; they talked about current events (there were noted male actors and sports figures being accused of sexually assaulting other men, including very young men, all over social media) and how every time they read of the stories or even caught one out of the corner of their eyes they’d be in PTSD-land and the sun would go dark.

Then Dean spoke. Cas was sitting directly across from him, and he never took his gaze from Dean except to blink.

“When I was fifteen,” Dean started, quietly. “I figured out that I liked guys as much as girls. Sexually, I mean. And I figured out that older men would buy me booze if I got friendly with them. And I moved around a lot and didn’t have a lot of adult supervision cause my mum died in a fire when I was little and shit with my widowed dad was fucked up. So I put myself in a lot of downright shitty situations because I wanted to drink, because drinking was what men did, and so I never got into drugs, just drank, because that’s what men do to kill pain, and I had lots of that — and my dad was — basically he was too sad to be a good dad, and the sad came out as angry and violent and drunk, and I couldn’t tell the difference.”

The other men listened, rapt, and a few of them made soft sounds of encouragement as Dean fell silent. He wasn’t looking anywhere in particular — his eyes flashed briefly and Cas was looking right at him. He looked away again.

“So,” Dean said, and he took a breath, and tears sparked in his eyes, and he put his thumb and forefinger under his lips as if to keep his chin from trembling, “When I was seventeen I told a guy who offered me liquor that I’d meet up with him in a motel room and I got there and instead of one blow job for some rye I - I found was going to be a chew toy for three guys, and I figured after the second time one guy tried to choke me while raping me in the ass that I was probably going to die, and my dad would go crazy and my baby brother - “and that was the point that the first tear made its way down Dean’s pale face, “was going to go into care.”

“So I decided I had to live, so I did my best to stay alive, and then,” Dean started to sob and then got everything under control after a couple of breaths, “about halfway through they ordered Mexican and they forced me to eat it. I’m bleeding from my ass and I’ve got a black eye and I’m fucking covered in bruises already and they made me eat, they made me fucking eat when all I wanted to do was puke, and then they gang-raped me every way they could for about two hours.”

It was so still that Cas heard two of Dean’s tears land on the thighs of his jeans.

“Still can’t handle Mexican food.” There was a little ripple of gallows humour. They all had triggers, they all knew there were signs, sounds, smells, that they could not yet unpick from normal life.

“I got away, I don’t really understand how, and I stole some bedding from a laundry cart and made myself a toga and stumbled home in the dark. I told Sam it was a prank gone wrong - thank Christ my dad wasn’t home, and I just cried and tried to get myself cleaned up for the next couple of days even though I should have been in hospital and … and finally I realized I was freaking the fuck out of my kid brother and so I quit with the zombie routine and I got it together. But after that, even though I was still attracted to men I didn’t act on it very often, and there was so much guilt and rage! I’m still so fucking mad.”

“Because it changed me, man. It stole my youth. It bent me in ways I have never told a living person before tonight. I know I can’t keep going like this, I want to - I want to believe I deserve to be happy. Not to feel like I am just a broken chew toy three child rapists nearly fucked to death.”

“I finally quit drinking and so of course I’m having nightmares like you probably know too well.”

There was a friendly murmur of acknowledgment.

“I needed to say out loud that it happened. It’s a start. And I’m done talking for now.”

He couldn’t stop himself from making a direct plea into those blue eyes. He looked back up at Cas and said, “Are you done with me now?”

Cas gazed at Dean as if he were crushed Dean could ask him that. Then he shook his head once, slowly.

Mike said, softly, but with authority, “This isn’t a couples counselling session, it’s a survivor’s circle.” Cas and Dean looked at him and solemnly nodded, not wanting to hijack the meeting.

The next person spoke, and Dean cleared his mind and tried to listen with the attention that Cas gave. It seemed to him, with that almost imperceptible headshake, that he could start breathing again. Cas wasn’t going to run away.

The sharing finished. There was a final group affirmation. “We’re not alone - we’re worthy of support - we’ll walk toward healing together,” and the meeting was over. Cas walked across the circle to Dean and put his arms around him and said into his neck, “I love you no matter what, no matter what.” Dean felt like he’d gone three rounds with Mike Tyson and that Cas's arms were the only things holding him up.

Mike approached Dean afterward with a coffee in his hand and said, “I am so glad you folks joined us tonight.”

They stepped away from each other, almost guiltily, but Dean felt Cas’s hand, warm and soothing, slip into his.

“How long have you been together?” Mike said. It was a reasonable question, so he was startled at how the two men started giggling hysterically. Cas calmed down first.

He said, knowing how it would sound, “A week.”

“We’re trying - “ Dean started. “We’re trying to clear the decks of some of the worst of the psychic mess before we get too involved,” he finished.

“You two look like you’ve been partners for years.”

“Well yeah, that’s kinda how it feels,” Dean said. Cas was smiling that half smile, the one that said he was thinking a lot more than he was willing to say.

They went home. It was so amazing to have a home, to know that they could walk in the door, collapse side by side in bed, and not have to deal with anything else but each other for twelve hours.

As Dean turned off the ignition, he turned to Cas and said, “And you know, Cas, that’s not even the worst of it.”

Cas's heart sank. “How so?”

Dean’s eyes filled with tears again. “I hafta tell Sam.” He leaned his head against the steering wheel and mewled with anticipated grief. “I hafta tell Sam.”

 


	14. Effective immediately, you're my boyfriend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fluff-to-angst-to-plot-to-porn balance is adjusted.

“Cas,” Dean said softly as they got out. “Can we just stay outside for a second?”

“Sure, Dean,” Cas said.

They stood on the porch in the darkness, holding hands and looking out at the neighborhood as it settled into an ordinary weeknight.

It was cool and still. Dean was still breathing funny, gasping sometimes, and needing the fresh air, so Cas stood next to him and felt a pang in his chest that seemed to come from nowhere. Dean was so strong, and so clever, and so funny, and so brave; all Cas wanted from life was to be able to stand next to him, just as he was doing now. He turned to look at Dean and Dean shifted to look back. He sniffed and said, “There’s pie inside. I forgot about that.”

“It’s obvious you’ve had a trying day if you forgot about all that pie,” Cas said, a faint smile on my face.

Dean seemed to falter. “And — I was wondering where you were planning on sleeping tonight,” Dean said.

“Well, I was going to ask you if you wanted to sleep in my room,” Cas said, a little perplexed and trying to hide it. “But I’ll sleep where you put me.”

“That’s very accommodating of you,” Dean said. He turned and opened the door. “I really want you to sleep in my bed tonight. Just sleep.”

“I’m too tired and sad and concerned for you to even be thinking about sex right now, although if anybody could talk me into it, it would be you.”

Dean’s soft, sad chuckle made itself heard above the scrape of the key in the lock. “I’m too fucked up to think about anything but pie right now.”

Dean spent a good fifteen minutes eating his feelings while Cas watched him. “You sure you don’t want some?” Dean asked.

“I had plenty earlier.”

The looked at each other, and Dean looked away first.

Cas cast around for something non-threatening to say. “Do you want to watch TV for a while?”

Dean shrugged. “You must think I’m a baby.”

Cas frowned and shook his head. “For crying? for admitting your pain? Dean, I just watched you do one of the hardest things you’ll ever do in your life! I don’t even know how to put how proud I am of you into words.” He rose and started tidying the kitchen, for something to do, and to quit pressuring Dean, who was not in a mood to talk.

Dean walked up behind Cas and pressed a kiss into his neck. Cas grinned a little and said, “Gooey!” since he could still feel a little bit of blueberry filling on Dean’s mouth.

“TV or not TV?” Cas said, still putting things away. Dean backed away to lean on the opposite counter, and watch him.

“Are you ogling me?” Cas asked.

“Maybe,” Dean said.

“Do you want something to look at?” Cas asked, dropping his voice a little.

“If you’re in the room I’ll never run out of somethings to look at,” Dean said, amusement in his voice. Without turning around, Cas took off his t-shirt and, balling it up, tossed it over the kitchen table into the living room.

Dean gulped audibly. Cas, who heard it even with his back turned, grinned to himself.

“What - what are you doing?” Dean asked.

“Getting comfortable. Didn’t you say I could get comfortable, _mi casa es su casa_ and all that?”

“I - I —“ Dean started.

“Can I say a few words here? I know that you’ve had a really emotional day, but I’d like to point out that _all the scars_ I have had since I was nine years old were magically removed today. Kind of a big deal for me.”

“Oh,” Dean said.

“Yeah. I either have sex with the light off or with a shirt on… this is going to be really weird for me. I just did a strip tease for you and it’s the first time in my life.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe he’ll put them back,” Dean said sadly. “If it’s magic there’s always a price, or shit goes back to where it was, or worse, like in fairy tales.”

“Gosh, Dean, I had no idea you were so good at pep talks,” Cas said, the sarcasm laid on with a trowel.

“I guess it’s kind of selfish of me to think that way,” Dean said, even more sadly.

“You can be as selfish as you like, as long as you don’t act on it,” Cas said. “So can I say something else? How badly do you want a drink right now?”

There was a long pause.

“Goddamnit, Cas,” Dean said. “Was it easy to tell?”

“You’ve just done something difficult and you normally reward yourself with alcohol and you can’t reward yourself that way right now and you’re about to go **_sproing_**. Wanna jump on me and distract yourself?”

“Is that why you took your shirt off?”

“Am I distracting you?” Cas pouted, turning around. “I’m gonna be really unhappy if this isn’t enough to distract you a little.” He mimed playing with his nipples and licked his lips.

Dean made a small, unidentifiable sound, then mastered himself. “Come here and distract me, then,” Dean said, a challenge in his voice and a smolder in his eyes.

Cas said, “Finally. Do you _really_ taste like salted caramel, or was that me hallucinating?” He put his hands out to capture Dean’s waist, and paused as Dean shivered under his hands. He pressed forward and closed his eyes as his mouth alit on Dean’s. Dean put his hands around Cas’s waist and they stood kissing for a few minutes, mostly Cas sucking on Dean’s tongue as it ranged through his mouth.

Dean’s hands drifted up Cas’s back, caressing him and squeezing and coming to rest atop his shoulders. Cas’s hands moved to cup Dean’s ass. They started to press against each other, and then Dean pulled back and heaved a great sigh.

“This isn’t what I - this is you distracting me. I wanted our first time to be special,” Dean said. He groaned into Cas’s neck. “Not me jumping on you like a starving animal.”

“Okay,” Cas said, changing mental gears again. “You drive.”

“But I don’t really want to stop kissing you.”

“Please don’t on my account,” Cas said urgently. “I could probably kiss you for hours. Dean, I’m not going anywhere.”

“It might not be up to you,” Dean said. “I’m afraid you’ll vanish out of my arms.”

“I understand perfectly,” Cas said. “You’re afraid you might have me bent over the kitchen table when all of a sudden I disappear mid-thrust. It sure would be tough explaining what triggered your fear of abandonment to your next boyfriend.”

“Cas!” Dean cried in anguish, “You literally could disappear at _any_ moment.”

“Then we need a plan,” Cas said reasonably.

Dean backed away from Cas with an expression of disbelief and dismay, exhaling sharply. Then he wound up. “A _plan_? A _plan_ against some kind of fucking _wizard_ who can open up a skinny blue door into my own fucking _living-room_? What the fuck is wrong with you, are you **_completely fucking nuts_**?”

Cas stood his ground. “Have you done everything in your power to stop that asshole from taking me? I know I haven’t, I’m just taking a while to process what seems to be enough shit for six months in a single twenty-four hour period.”

“What?” Dean said.

“Have you done everything -“

“No, because there’s nothing I _can_ do.”

“Have you tried everything?”

“Have you? What the hell’s your plan?”

“I’m gonna call Garth,” Cas said. “He’s the only one who seems to have a clue what we’re up against, maybe he knows something we don’t that could, I don’t know, keep him out of your house, maybe, or make your gun able to kill trans-dimensional assholes? I know it’s not a plan but it’s a start on a plan.”

Dean stared at him for a second, and then started kissing him again. It was a relief. He pulled his warm, magnificent lips away from his long enough to say, “We’ll call him in the morning, Garth keeps the same public school schedule his girlfriend does.”

“I know it’s really early but can I start calling you my boyfriend at least in my own mind?”

“Where the hell did that come from?” Dean chuckled in his ear.

Cas said, “Well, wherever I end up I want to be able to say I was your boyfriend for a while.”

“Effective immediately you’re my boyfriend,” Dean said. The indulgent tone made him smile against Dean’s cheek. “People are already mistaking us for that anyway, you cuddler you.”


	15. Drifting on an ocean of caresses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By the end of round 3 Cas can only consider himself the most sexually spoiled man on earth.

With a few brief, task-related words, they brushed their teeth side by side, and, casually averting their eyes, stripped to their shorts and got ready for bed. Cas shivered to himself in pleasure, smelling Dean’s sheets as he lay in them again. Dean curled into his side, his forehead touching Cas’s shoulder.

Cas was not angry with Dean for falling asleep faster than he would have thought possible, but his head — and nerves —were buzzing too hard for any prospect of conking out with such speed. After a while, he began to snore, just barely.

The sexiest man alive was making little percolator noises in his ear — out cold.

Eventually, Cas slept.

At some point during the night, Cas woke to Dean’s hand smoothing over his backside. He rubbed up against Cas and licked his shoulder and pushed his erection into the top of his thigh and then his fingertip moved like lightning and flicked over a nipple.

All the hair on Cas’s body stood on end. “Oh my god,” he murmured, as he became fully awake and blood stampeded into his dick.

The murmur in his ear was a warm breath of lust. “You like that?” Dean’s hand now moved to his dick. “My, my,” he said softly. “That didn’t take long.”

Talk ceased. Dean stalked Cas’s breath for clues to what he liked, and laughed, the evil, knowing laugh Cas was already familiar with, as he pushed and licked and flicked and massaged and sucked and left pre-cum on almost every part of Cas’s body. Some uncountable time in the dark later, while Cas’s heart juddered and banged in his chest, but orgasm still seemed a _very_ long way away, he heard Dean’s voice moaning in self-derision into his neck.

“Now what?”

“I wanna fuck you by natural light,” Cas said. It was the first thing that came into his head, but in his defence, his thoughts were having a hard time staying in formation.

“You are the strangest damned man I ever met. I mean, right _now_ , what do you want to do to me right _now_?”

“I want you to ask for what you want so I don’t have to worry I’m grinding sand into a wound,” Cas said. He was panting a trifle; concentration was difficult thanks to whatever the hell Dean was doing with his cock and balls. They faced each other, their breath a hothouse of pheromones between them. Cas found himself gripping Dean really hard, kept trying to relax his grip, only to find that he was holding onto Dean again as if he anticipated being ripped away from him.

Dean moved forward and they kissed. It was a long, rambling kiss, not headed anywhere in particular, until abruptly Dean pulled Cas on top of him. The kiss continued, accompanied by Cas rolling his hips in a slow, controlled way while Dean writhed underneath him, moaning into his mouth and yielding himself up, pushing their cocks together with one hand while he pulled Cas’s neck down with the other.

Orgasm flared green behind Cas’s eyelids, as if, even with his eyes closed in the dark, Dean’s eyes were all he could see. “I’m coming,” Cas groaned, and collapsed, panting, unable to take any more friction after coming so hard. He threw himself aside and rolled over on his back. He could still feel it ebbing and flowing through his body. He should say something, make an exchange for this exquisite gift — the red-hot dark’n’anonymous feel of the sex — holy shit he’d felt so _hard_ — at one with the knowledge that it was Dean — Dean holding him — his beautiful man —he’d longed for —

Dean emitted a soft snicker. Cas was already asleep; it was obvious from his breathing. Dean cleaned them both up, fumbling in the dark for wet wipes. Cas didn’t even twitch, which amazed him. Dean rubbed his closed eye with the back of one knuckle like a small child and after a few minutes, smiling into Cas’s shoulder, fell asleep.

 

Drying out after his long run as an almost functional alcoholic had completely fucked up Dean’s sleeping habits. After two hours he was awake again and feeling mischievous. So he crept further under the covers and started blowing Cas.

Cas roused and became aware of his ‘wake-up call’ almost instantly.He wanted to ask if he was going to be allowed to return the favor, but there was no point. He was incapable of speech by the fourth or fifth time the head of his cock collided with the back of Dean’s throat. The slurping and sucking noises went on for quite a while. Cas found he’d put his hands on the back of Dean’s head and was pulling a lot harder than he felt he should, but Dean made no objections.

Cas said, “I’m gonna — “ and Dean swallowed him and his come down while Cas’s hips thrust and his rhythmic grunts drowned Dean’s filthy noises.

“Are you going to let me take care of you?” Cas asked faintly when he could speak again.

“Eventually,” Dean said. “You said something about fucking me in daylight. Relax… sleep.”

“I — I don’t feel right about it,” Cas muttered.

“You will. Go back to sleep,” Dean said, a little smirk in his voice.

Cas, frowning a little, complied.

Dean got up and, working by feel at the bottom of the pitch-dark closet, very quietly pulled out the banker box of sex toys. He lubed himself up and started stretching his hole, finally leaving one of the larger diameter butt-plugs in place - Cas had many fine qualities and girth was one of them - so he’d be ready for Cas when the sun came up.

Cas woke unassisted as the first rays of the morning light stole into Dean’s bedroom. He heard Dean on the phone, talking to Garth, making arrangements to meet later.

“You said something about wanting to take care of me?” Dean said, returning to his bed with a leer.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Well, I’ve been stretching myself for hours, why don’t you fuck me like you promised?” Dean asked.

Which was how Cas learned that Dean coming noisily and wantonly in his ear was only improved by watching dawn break over Dean’s face while he was balls deep in Dean’s hungry ass.

Dean was weeping openly after he came. He looked up at Cas and said, “You’re the first — since,” while Cas was still inside him, and Cas cried a little too.


	16. The Officiant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas's mindblown recap of the night before is interrupted by the arrival of Garth and Bobby Singer, the expert in magic Garth managed to locate. He provides some advice, and makes himself available as the officiant in a hasty spiritual shotgun wedding to help fend off the threat.
> 
> Our boys do about as well as you'd expect, improvising wedding vows.

Cas patted the bed beside him.There was still a ghost of warmth and a glorious hint of Dean's delicious body scent. Dean had closed the curtains, bless him, allowing a few more hours of much-needed rest. Dean didn't seem to need much sleep.

He smelled coffee, and spread himself out some more on the bed, eyes closed, smiling. Every memory was a jewel, he wanted to remember it all, it would be terrible to forget anything about what they did, how it made them feel. Dean could feel this poignant urgency, the horror of separation that loomed at every moment, just as he could. But he didn't give into it, by complaining or being regretful. He grabbed every moment he could as it went by.

Sometimes he was urging him on, saying his name, over and over, saying crazy, stupid, hot things. Sometimes they would kiss for half an hour at a time and it made Cas feel high even though he hadn't eaten any cannabis goodies. Sometimes while they were going at it Dean stopped moaning, and that was good too, listening to him pant, too fucked up with the caroming sensations to speak or move. 

How many times had Dean woken him? It had been incredible, his face as he stroked himself and coming everywhere with what he had been saving up for hours, his ass twitching and driving Cas off the same cliff. And then he cried, and Cas felt Dean's trust as the most important gift he had ever received.

Dean was both demanding and attentive, a fatal combination for Cas, who enjoyed being carried along by Dean's capacity for blissful enjoyment of his perfect body.

He remembered waves of ecstatic heat coursing through his dick, coming deep in Dean's mouth. 

There was a bang on the door. Cas sighed heavily and got up and got dressed while Dean let Garth in.

Except it wasn't just Garth.

Garth, whose normal exuberance was absent, had brought someone with him, a gruff, bearded man in a ball cap named Bobby Singer, and he was, according to Garth, the world's leading expert on the magic of both Earth and alternate universes.

After the introductions it was time for a recap. Garth, who seemed in awe of Bobby, didn’t say a word until addressed.

"So," Bobby said, with an unplaceable southern accent, "Why don't you boys tell me what happened."

Dean, with occasional comments from Cas, sketched in the story, and described the portal that had appeared.

“Look anything like this?” Bobby said, and held up a blurry photograph. Dean and Cas both sat up and leaned forward.

“Where did you take this?” Cas said, astonished.

“I didn’t,” Bobby said laconically. “It’s an enlargement of a photograph a buddy of mine took in 1974 at an outdoor rock concert in England.”

“Did Zeppelin play?” Dean said, apparently even more excited about this possibility than photographic evidence of a portal to another world.

“Not at that one, no, and they only played one gig in England in 1974, anyway.” Bobby looked at Dean and Dean suspected that if he got into a game of ‘Zeppelin Facts’ with Bobby, Bobby’d mop the floor with him. “I never would have known about this if I hadn’t caught up with him on the way through town ‘bout a year ago, and he was showing me photos he’d assembled for a retrospective he put on at some fancy photo gallery in Vegas. He thought the lights were reflections, but I — I chose to believe something else.”

“Now tell me about the guy,” Bobby continued, and if he’d been paying attention before, his retriever-like focus on Dean and Cas as they spoke was now closing fast on _scary_.

“The slimy Limey bastard,” Dean said.

“He had an English accent?” Bobby said, and for a second his eyes bugged out. He closed them, sat back in his armchair and sighed heavily. “Nice suit, trimmed beard, sportin’ a bit of a ‘tude?”

“That’d be him,” Dean said. “Don’t tell me you know him too.”

“Goddamn,” Bobby said. He reached into his folder and pulled out a portrait in pencil torn from a sketch pad. “This the guy?”

“How the hell do you know about him?” Dean asked, almost squeaking. This was all a bit much.

“As soon as I got this photo, I started having dreams. Weird fucking dreams, I don’t mind saying. I near fell over when I saw you,” and here he pointed at Cas, shaking his finger for emphasis, “‘cept in those dreams you had big black wings, the size of this house.”

“I had wings,” Cas said. He glanced at Dean. It was no crazier or more emotionally taxing than anything else that had happened in the last day.

“I’m assuming your counterpart is different, in that world, and he appears to be an angel.”

“An angel. So Cas is important, really important in this other place,” Dean said. “Important enough for that asshole to do… all that shit that he did,” he finished lamely.

Bobby scarcely heard him. “But that’s not what I need to tell you. I had three dreams when I saw the alternate Cas, and your doppelgänger made me memorize how to trap this — thing — Crowley if he ever came here.”

“Trap him?” Garth and Dean said simultaneously.

“Well, yeah,” Bobby said. “We shouldn’t let him run around this world without at least asking him his business in a little more detail, don’tcha think? He’ll have to go back to wherever he came from, and sooner rather than later, but we should grill him while we can. And we should do something to protect Cas from getting yanked to some dimension he’d prefer not to visit, if the trap don’t work.”

“That idea is finding a lot of favor with me. I want to stay right here, with Dean,” Cas said fervently.

“Ditto,” Dean said.

“I’m gonna ask a question that is the height of impudence,” Bobby said, “So here goes: Do you think you’re soulmates?”

“What?” Cas said blankly.

“Yes,” said Dean.

Cas turned to Dean and said, “What?” in a completely different tone of voice. Garth giggled, which ruined the effect.

“What about my answer has any bearing on our inter-dimensional portal problem?” Cas asked, irritation deepening his voice.

“‘Cause if you _are_ soulmates and I perform a hand-fasting ritual - a spiritual marriage, basically - he won’t be able to just walk off with Cas, he’ll be stuck on this side because Dean’s anchoring him.”

“Did you bring what you need?” Dean asked abruptly. “What you need for the ritual?”

“Dean, may I speak with you privately?” Cas asked. His eyes were wide and his manner was polite but unflinching. Garth and Bobby looked at each other and held their breath.

As soon as Dean’s bedroom door was closed behind them, Dean said, “Cas, if you don’t think you’re my soulmate, tell me now so I can deal with it.”

“It’s not that, it’s just that these feelings are personal and private to me and I’m having them dragged into the open in front of two strangers and I’m being pressured.” He pulled Dean into his arms and kissed him, and Dean relaxed, just a little.

“Yes,” Cas said softly into his neck. “From the minute I saw you, I loved you. I know this is the right thing to do, I just —“

“We’ll have the public ceremony later, relax,” Dean said.

“You’d marry me,” Cas said. For saying something that inane he collected a hard, salty kiss.

“We’re soulmates, ya silly goose,” Dean said, letting go of Cas’s lower lip with a lewd pop. “Man, I had no idea I was getting married today, but I think most days life with you won’t be _quite_ this exciting.”

“I’m not really dressed for it,” Cas said.

“Ready or not!” Dean said.

 

They re-entered the living room and sheepishly agreed that as stupid as it sounded, they both thought they were soulmates.

“So about the ritual,” Dean said.

“You must both wear white, or both be naked,” Bobby said. “Hey, I don’t make the rules.”

“So much for not being dressed for it,” Cas said, giving Dean a droll look. He stripped to his boxers without a second thought. Dean hemmed and hawed and Cas called him on it, and he told Garth if he ogled him he’d punch his lights out and Garth laughed at him and said, “Wedding nerves,” while batting his eyes at Dean.

Dean said, “I will fucking end you, so help me God.”

Bobby went out to the car to get the rest of the items he would need; a silver bowl, a mortar and pestle, a small table and altar cloth, half a dozen dried and fresh herbs, salt, honey, and a beeswax candle which seemed to have small seeds embedded in it. Bobby explained what everything was for and asked them to stand facing each other while he wrapped a linen cloth, which was permeated by a strong smelling combination of benzoin and frankincense, around their hands and wrists.

Bobby spoke the words of the ritual, from memory, and then lit the herbs on fire and swept the smoke with special gestures through the room.

“Say your soulmate’s name and speak from your heart about your bond,” Bobby said. “The ritual says that it must not be rehearsed or read.”

Cas spoke first. He took a deep breath, and then another, and spoke, as instructed, from his heart. “Dean, may every day I share with you make me a better man, a more patient man, a more loving man. May you always see in me your partner, your lover, your friend, your defender.” He stopped. Dean’s eyes were a brilliant green from unshed tears. “May I love you as you should be loved. Anything you need from me, I will do my best to give. I want to stand by your side, to trust you and be trusted, to love you and be loved by you, as long as we live.”

Dean took a little breath. “Cas — Castiel. Oh man.” He gasped, sniffed, and then seeing Cas’s loving face he smiled back and spoke his piece. “I’m not a peaceful soul, but you bring peace to me. I will love you with all of my body, and all of my heart, and all of my soul, as long as we’re both alive. You’re mine, and I’m yours, and that’s all there is to it.”

Bobby said three final words. The linen cloth appeared to smoke. There was a tiny flicker of fire, a flash of heat, and then the cloths turned to ash and vanished. For a moment it appeared that letters written in gold were moving up and down their arms, and then there was a distinct pop.

“I’ll be damned,” Bobby said. “That’s only the second ritual I ever did that worked. You boys really are soulmates.”

“Good thing you didn’t tell 'em about your track record first,” Garth said. “Congratulations Cas, Dean, I wish you decades of bliss. And pants. I’m voting for you doing something about your pants deficiency.”

“You boys know what wards are?” Bobby said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do before the gent with the suit comes back.”


	17. The Marriage Feast Part I

“So where’d you learn all this shit?” Dean asked. He watched as Bobby Singer wrecked every one of his walls, floors and ceilings. He’d thrown his energy into fixing up the house any time he had nothing pressing happening at the business, and watching his family memories and love and sweat drilled and covered in horrible marks in red paint had him breathing hard and on the verge of tears and mayhem. Cas found holding him back was like trying to ride herd on a fire-breathing teddy bear.

Bobby grunted, but he was straight-forward enough in his response. “Self-taught, and a professor of linguistics at Stanford helped me with most of the rest. On the QT, of course, there’s no way she wants people to know she’s translating Babylonian curses and Hebrew warding against evil not just for academia but to kick demon ass too. After she had an artefact go bad on her and I helped her out, we kinda started looking out for each other. This warding’s kind of a mishmash, but I’m fixing it so whatever entity comes through here either can’t take you, or gets trapped here without you gettin’ waved into the wall at ninety miles an hour, or otherwise fucked with.”

Cas held Dean in a bracing sort of way as he watched the destruction of his home. He spoke softly into his ear. “Dean, everything here can be fixed. Our other problems? Without this, they are not fixable. A man walked through a door in the fucking air, Dean,” Cas said, and let go to stand back and look at his man.

Dean’s eyes slowly moved up to Cas’s and he looked distant, almost drugged. “You believe all this.”

“I have to, or I lose you.” Cas thought about it, and gave a soft chuckle of wonderment. “I’m going to have a shower.”

There was a pause. The cordless drill fired up again and Dean winced. He sniffed.

Garth said, after a brief, quiet exchange with Bobby, “He says he’s got two more hours of this before he’ll call it done, so let me at least buy you a wedding feast!”

Dean looked like he wanted to strangle Garth.

“You know, lunch, away from this house, maybe,” Garth said, “So I don’t have to be worried you’re gonna go postal on Bobby,” he added, as if that would help.

Cas said, “You are the best friend I’ve ever had,” and Dean looked bug-eyed in disbelief. “We’ll go as soon as I’m showered and changed,” Cas said, restraining Dean with a glance.

“Hey, you’re married now and it’s your house — don’t let me stop you,” Garth said cheerfully to Dean, nodding thoughtfully between him and the shower.Dean now looked like he thought strangulation would be too good for Garth.

Cas shook his head just a little at Garth and then powered through his ablutions at top speed. He realized something horrible just as Dean came into the washroom and he was getting out of the shower, and Cas was diverted from his horrible thought by the guilty pleasure of a leering elevator stare from Dean, which stopped overlong at the middle floor until they’d both sprung boners and started kissing and grinding.

“Dean, Dean, I just barely got the stink _off_ me,” Cas said and in spite of himself Dean laughed.

“You have to call Sam,” Cas said, and Dean’s flash of humour vanished.

“Oh god, I have to call him about two horrible things now, not just one.”

“Us finding out we’re soulmates is not a terrible thing,” Cas said in a consoling tone. “Sam’s a lawyer. He won’t think any ritualistic nonsense we went through is legally binding, because it isn’t as far as the state’s concerned.”

“You saw the light and the letters go up your arm. You felt that little stab in your heart, I know you did, you felt it the same time I did. It was in your face,” Dean said.

“You said the most beautiful words,” Cas said, and even though Dean thought he’d sounded like an idiot, it was okay. Cas thought it was beautiful, and that was all that mattered.

“I thought you sounded like poetry, like the words of a song. It was amazing,” Dean said, and Garth was banging on the door, “Remember my metabolism, Dean, I gotta get going or I’m gonna get hangry,” and then Cas and Dean both snickered when they heard Bobby say, “Whatcha gonna do, talk ‘em both to death in your hangry rage?”

Cas had his pants on so Dean popped the door open. “Garth’s no fun when he faints, seriously. We should motor.”

“Dean, let me get my socks and shirt on,” Cas said. He threw himself onto the sofa and pulled on the rest of his clothing.

“Garth, if Cas didn’t think this was a good idea I’d …”

Garth gave Dean a cheerful, all is forgiven smile. Dean was in the front seat, of course. Dean had to look like the lead in public, Cas got that. Power exchange possibilities lay before them, pretty much as far as life and imagination could stretch, and that would all be in private, and Cas sighed happily, just thinking about it.

“What’s going on back there,” Dean said, misinterpreting the sigh.

“Enjoying the prospect of further intimacy,” Cas said, setting the record straight without detail. Dean was happy to indulge the thought.

“We’re almost at the diner,” Dean said. “Don’t get too fresh with yourself.”

“I drive my stepdaughter around in this car!” Garth protested. “Not that I think you’d jack off in my car, no matter how Dean sweet-talked you,” he said, briefly eyeballing Cas in the rearview, while Dean made a “Wha?” sound.

Garth wound himself up. “I saw what happened between you two. Hard to believe that anything like that could ever happen! I was sober and so was everyone else in the room, and honest to God when I started getting into magic and alternate realities I thought it was a hobby and now it turns out to be life and death and soulmates and - and - demi-gods, and mythological and demonic entities! It is most sincerely messed up, and I’m loving every minute of it! I feel like a really privileged man right now, close to the essence of something.”

“The spectacle of Dean eating definitely breaks life down to its essentials,” Cas said, pouncing on the moment Garth took a breath.

“You moan when you eat, you know that?” Garth said, shooting a glance sideways.

Dean roused himself from his ill-will and tried a more friendly jab. “And you’re taking me out for a - for a wedding feast, was that what you - so you can listen to me _moan_ over a burger. Oooh baby.”

“Well, I’m not buying you a salad, I know that for a fact,” Garth said. “All I’d get out of that is you making cartoon noises, ‘Ptui! Ptui!’ and saying if you wanted a dinner pack for your guinea pig you wouldn’t put it on your plate first.”

“I never said that,” Dean said.

“In your defence, you were half-snapped,” Garth said. Cas started to believe he might just burst out laughing, and tried hard to change the subject.

“So tell me about the place we’re going,” he began, and Dean cut him off.

“It’s a diner. Their coffee isn’t bad. They’ve never given me food poisoning,” he said.

Garth snickered. “That’s like a three star Guide Michelin rating coming from Dean,” he said, and that was when Cas lost the battle with his self-control and emitted a very unexpected honking laugh, which dissolved into a throaty chuckle of pure mirth.

“Jesus,” Dean said, recovering first, since unlike the other two he wasn’t laughing his fool head off. “Who let that goose in here? I’ve _never_ heard you laugh like that!”

“We could hang out with Garth more often,” Cas said, “I now understand why you pretend to hate him.” His eyes sparkled with amusement.

“I don’t pretend to hate you, Garth,” Dean said. “I like you fine, I just find you annoying as fuck.”

“Don’t you wish you could set interpersonal boundaries the Dean Winchester way?” Garth said, glancing briefly at Cas in the rearview. “He’s being mean to me verbally, but who’s gonna pluck me out of a snowbank when my stepdaughter and her lovely mother are at Disney World? He drove two hundred and fifty miles for me when the predecessor to this fine vehicle tooted out its last exhaust. He even stayed more or less sober.”

“You’ve seen me at my worst and still like me,” Dean said. “I think you’re a fucking masochist. Cas, I don’t want to hear a word out of you, you’re stuck with me.”

“Still good with that decision, thanks,” Cas said.

“Don’t get any funny ideas,” Dean said.

“That’ll be really hard as long as Garth is here,” Cas said.

Garth said, “I’m flattered, I hope. Here we are,” and they parked and went inside Perry’s Family Eats.

Cas ordered a stack of high-fibre pancakes and fresh fruit with yogurt. Garth ordered chicken fingers and a special item he’d worked out with the kitchen, half yam fries and half french fries in a single basket, and a milkshake. Dean ordered two burgers, done two different ways, with complicated instructions, which turned out to be Dino Special.

“Are you telling me that you two eat here so often they’ve put stuff on a secret menu for you?”

Garth and Dean both shrugged simultaneously.

Cas looked at Dean. “While you’re waiting, go outside and call your brother. Every minute you delay looks really really bad.”

“Dude’s right,” Garth said.

Scowling, Dean got up and got out his phone. He shot one last resentful look at them as he walked away, and then he parked his ass on the hood of Garth’s car.


	18. A bundle of news

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean spills the beans to Sam; Cas and Garth watch him do it and dissect him at the same time.

With mounting dread, but also a wild glimmer of excitement, because he, Dean Winchester, the man who was never going to get married because he was kind of a horndog with a major drinking problem, was a **_newlywed_** , sort of, Dean said, “Hey, Sammy.”

“Howzit goin’?” Sam replied.

“You’re gonna hate me,” Dean said.

“Is it something to do with Cas?” Sam effortlessly predicted.

“Well, yeah, and also kinda not. You remember when I came home all beat up when I was fifteen and you got upset with me because I didn’t go to the hospital?”

“Vaguely, yeah. You weren’t just beat, you were — I remember you crying… and drinking, a lot.”

Dean looked all around. He turned away from the restaurant window and said, clearly and quietly, “I was gang-raped in a motel room.”

Sam gasped, and then yelled, “ ** _What_**? What the _hell_ , Dean?”

Dean tried to get the words out as fast as he could. “So as you can imagine it kinda messed me up, and I stopped being openly interested in men, so I didn’t tell you I was bi, and I’m really, _really_ sorry I lied to you by omission about something so important.”

Sam was almost stammering, he was so overpowered by the news. “Holy fuck. You said I was going to hate you…. how could you _possibly_ _think_ hearing about this would make me _hate_ you? Dean, this is terrible. I’m so sorry this happened to you. Are you getting help? Or did Cas… what the hell is going on with you two!?”

“Oh,” Dean said, relieved his brother was taking that part so well. He moved so Garth and Cas could see his face again and made a thumb’s up sign at them. “Yeah, getting help, but that’s not what you’re going to hate me about,” at which point Sam started making noises like his face was in danger of blowing off his head while his brains departed in a stream through both ears.

“Oh my _God_ , Dean, what have you done?”

“It has no legal status!” Dean said, as if this was somehow going to make his lawyer brother feel better.

Sam’s voice bottomed out in its lowest register and ground out his next words. “Dean, what the fuck have you done.”

“It’s like a spiritual marriage,” Dean said. “Between me and Cas. I really wish you’d been there, but we were kind of in a hurry, what with this chucklehead from another universe threatening to kidnap Cas.”

“A spiritual marriage,” Sam said flatly.

Dean said, as if it was intrinsically obvious, “Well, we’re soul-mates. ‘Course, we’re hoping to make it official at some point. If that happens will you stand up with me?”

“Dean, you two’ve known each other less than a fortnight!” Long-suffering did not even come close to describing Sam’s tone.

“Sam, you’re the only man I know who uses fortnight in a sentence, but it doesn’t change the question, will you stand up with me or not?” Dean said. “‘Course, now that I know Cas, I think I know two people who could use fortnight in a sentence….”

“What happened?” Sam was throwing his hands up in the air at this point, Dean was sure of it. Dean looked around again to ensure nobody was eavesdropping. Dean heard Sam’s office door slam, really hard, if the sound was anything to go by.

“Garth found us a magician, and the magician dude is - even as we speak -banging sigils into my ceilings and painting red crap on the walls to keep the evil chucklehead out, but he said performing the soul-mate ritual would prevent the evil chucklehead from leaving with Cas if he did get in.”

Sam struggled to control his breathing, and finally said, “You sound like a raving lunatic.”

“Come around to the house, the fucking red paint and drill holes are real enough,” Dean said in disgust.“Seriously, come by tonight, I’ll feed you dinner. There’s a _lot_ of fucking pie. And we probably have things we need to talk about when you’re not at work.”

“Thanks for suddenly noticing I have wants and needs, Dean,” Sam said, and then he thought about his brother, his adored, annoying, mother hen brother, being young and vulnerable and raped, and his stomach twisted and his breakfast flopped around and he said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” and Dean said. “Me too. See you… tonight?”

“Count on it,” Sam said.

He stared at the phone as he put the receiver into the cradle.

_Holy crap._

 

_Meanwhile…_

 

Garth said, “Well he’s surviving the conversation okay, I guess.”

Cas guessed that this part of the conversation was about the sexual assault. Dean’s body language collapsed down on itself - he looked like he was whispering into the phone. Then Dean uncoiled and started waving his free arm around and gave the two men watching the thumb’s up.

Cas expelled his breath. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding it.

Miraculously, he got through the second part of the conversation without anything more untoward than a frown on his face.

“Dean is kind of rude toward you, and yet you’re so kind to him,” Cas said.

Garth laughed, a sunny laugh full of teasing affection. “I know what’s going on with him.”

Cas tilted his head. “And what would that be?”

“Dean is a total sweetheart. Anybody who spends more than a few hours with him knows that,” Garth said.

“Obviously,” Cas said.

“But he hates himself,” Garth said. “He thinks he’s stupider than his brother, which is obviously not true. He thinks he’s a loser because up until about, oh,” and here he mimed looking at his outsized watch, “thirty seconds ago, he didn’t have a proper life partner. And he thinks he’s a loser because of his profession, which is in most people’s view kinda shady, and his sexuality - yes! I’ve known he was bi for _years_ now. And let’s not even get into the drinking, which was, full stop, horrific. I know all these things, and I don’t judge him, and that’s why he’s mean to me. He wants me to see him the way he sees himself, and I won’t play.”

“I won’t play either,” Cas said, in his deepest voice.

The waitress set down two coffees and an orange smoothie.

Garth nodded slowly. “Which is why we’re both here. I think Dean Winchester is awesome. He’s helped me when nobody else would and then looked at me like I’m crazy when I thanked him. Also, I’m feeling really guilty, because there’s something I haven’t told him, and his brother hasn’t either.”

Cas thought about it.

Insight came.

“You’ve been covering for him!” he exclaimed. “With investigations for Sam’s law firm!”

“Yeah, and hiding it, which I don’t like. But he’s sober now, thank God, and I’m really, really hoping he’ll stay that way. So I don’t have to hide it any more. Looks like he’s winding it up, there,” Garth said.

Dean came back in. He was shaking his head and smiling at Cas.

“How’d it go?” Cas asked, although he had a good idea.

“As well as expected. We’re feeding him tonight. You too, if you like,” Dean said ungraciously. Cas and Garth exchanged a look and Dean said, with irritation, “What? What?”

“I’ll be dining at home,” Garth said. “Girlfriend’s working late.”

“When are you marrying her?” Dean asked. He still sounded pissy, but Cas began to see what Garth was talking about.

“When she asks me to,” Garth replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Let me know when you two are tying the knot… that’ll be a bachelor party not to be missed.”

Dean hate-stared at Garth and Cas said, “Dean, Garth is one of the best friends you have and you should get over yourself.”

Garth took a long pull on his smoothie and nodded.


	19. Cracking on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley shows and the balloon goes up.

Garth dropped them back home and consulted with Bobby, who was still ‘working’, or as Dean described it, ‘wrecking my fucking house!’

Bobby gave them a thumb drive with a number of incantations to drive demons out of their vessels, and told Garth, Dean and Cas to memorize it. Dean slapped his down on the kitchen table and said, after rubbing his face and eyes so hard it made his face turn red, “I gotta work. Cas - just - keep an eye on him.” He strode out of the house. They heard the Impala fire up and all mentally shrugged. Then they heard the engine of Dean’s crappy little surveillance vehicle fire up.

Cas went to the front door window and peeked out. He realized that Dean had decided that if he was going to get yoinked into another universe, he wanted the Impala (at least) to be safe.

“Why all the pie?” Garth said uneasily. There was pie on almost every surface. He helped himself to some peach pie. He knew where the plates were.

“I got a little enthusiastic,” Cas said. “So tell me what you think I should know about this…. Crowley person.”

Bobby said, “All I know’s he’s a horrible fuckin’ asshole in my dreams, and whatever he’s got planned for you it ain’t likely to involve happiness and long life.”

“But he healed me!” Cas said.

“Yeah, I don’t get that part,” Bobby said. “I’d sure like to know what he’s got planned for you on the other side. Seems like the Cas in that universe is part of his plots, maybe to fake somebody out. But it’s most likely he’s just going to kill you and make it look like the other Cas.”

“He was very _familiar_ , as if he was used to seeing us often,” Cas said, shuddering a little at the thought. “He called Dean ‘Squirrel’, and I have no idea why he’d do that. I looked it up on the internet; I think he’s making fun of Dean’s love for that Impala. In the old days, guys who worked on muscle cars were called squirrels.”

Garth looked up from his smart phone. “Squirrel is also a nickname for a man ho,” he said, “Because they always wanna nut.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Cas said. “I don’t think I’ll share that with Dean.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Garth said, “Sounds to me exactly like something that would make Dean laugh.”

“Interesting as your theories are,” Bobby said, with awful sarcasm, “I have another. In one of my dreams, Crowley’s yelling at somebody down a corridor. He says, “Hurry up, Moose, you don’t want to be late for the apocalypse, do you?” and the two of them rush by me.

He tapped a framed photograph on the hutch. “I take it this tall gent is Dean’s brother?”

“Yeah,” Garth and Cas said simultaneously.

Dean returned through the front door as if he was a Cas-seeking missile.

“Moose and Squirrel,” Bobby said, turning his head.

“From _Bullwinkle?”_ Cas said, appalled.

“I can’t leave, I have a terrible feeling,” Dean said.

There was a little pause while all four men felt their normal perceptions fade before the onset of a terrible hollowed-out feeling of dread, and then snap back into place. They all looked at each other and saw in their reflected expressions an agreement that something very creepy had taken place.

“Only if the dream’s accurate,” Bobby said grimly, first in recovering the power of speech. “But I’m doing okay in the prognostication department so far.” There was a little self-satisfaction in the comment, but more worry than anything else.

“Great,” Dean said. “Just great. Now we know that there’s a Rocky and Bullwinkle show in the other universe, but I don’t see how that helps.”

“It means,” Cas said, “That if I _do_ see someone who looks like you or your brother they’re probably allies — if I can convince them that I’m not part of whatever Crowley’s doing.”

Garth said, “Can you hear that?”

Bobby said, “I can hardly hear anything over my tinnitus, Garth.”

“I can hear something,” Cas said softly.

“Hear what?” Dean said, with false bravado.

The vortex which had most recently issued Crowley abruptly re-opened, and Crowley stepped out, missing Garth, who leapt aside most entertainingly, by inches.

“You fucking asshole,” Dean said. “I _knew_ you were coming back.”

“I didn’t come for you,” Crowley said, disdain cascading out of his posture and tone. He gestured toward Cas, who realized that Crowley had suddenly gained complete control over his movements, and found himself walking toward the vortex. “He’s making me do it,” Cas squawked, and Crowley said, “Uh, uh, uh! Don’t dare to dream about thinking about it, Feathers.” He waved a hand and Cas fell silent and his eyes fixed Dean’s with a look of horror and appeal.

Dean ran toward the vortex and grabbed Cas’s hand. Cas was tugged by forces unseen through the wavy blue line, and with a cry, Dean followed him.

“What!?” Crowley said in quiet horror, and then looked full into Bobby Singer’s face with a promise of death — and worse.

“They’re soulmates. Did the ritual,” Bobby said shortly.

“No.” Crowley’s face had lost its normal smugness. He looked blank long enough to look quite distressed.

Then something quite remarkable happened, horrifying in varying degrees to all those present. Crowley was tugged, apparently by his ass, toward the vortex. It became apparent that Crowley was no longer keen on departing through the door he’d made his artistic entrance through. He swivelled around on his ass and became fully horizontal. His shoes came off, but for some reason his socks stayed on.

Crowley put a brave face on it as the blue crack consumed him up to his waist. He said to Bobby, hatred stark in his pouch-eyed glare, “You stupid fucking bastard, I hope you are clever enough to fix the mess you were incompetent enough to create.”

“You should have left room in the spell for additional weight,” Bobby said, and the last he and Garth saw of him, Crowley was yelling, “Save us! Call us back! _Do it_!” The blue crack snapped shut. A little flicker of blue remained behind, and sparked and wavered across the floor like a snake with its tail stuck in a door. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere; it thrashed around without really moving.

“Man,” Garth said. He seemed quite apprehensive. “Does that mean what I think it does?”

“The boys didn’t mention anything about leftover energy,” Bobby said, squinting at it.

“Should we try to contain it?” Garth asked.

“Hell if I know how,” Bobby said curtly. “I suspect this ain’t usual.”

“Not much about this situation is. Where’d they go?” Garth asked.

“I have a feeling they’re someplace they ain’t s’poseta be, and we have to rescue them. I don’t like our odds much. I gotta make a phone call.” Bobby heaved a great sigh and shook his head. “I may have killed your friends,” he said to Garth. He looked very drawn.

“I don’t believe that for a minute,” Garth said, with the sunny optimism that was both blessing and bane. “You used the soul binding to get them lost in there, use it to call them back.” He waved his arm at the place where Crowley’s door had been.

Bobby looked at Garth with more respect. He said, “You know, I just might try that…. and now I definitely have to make a phone call. Can I leave you here to keep an eye on the door, lemme know if anything changes?”

“Sure,” Garth said. “Although if it shows up and starts grabbing my ass and pulling me along the floor I’m going to be a little bit choked with you.”

“Right. Lemme ward you.” To Garth’s disgust Bobby tied various objects to him until he “looked like he’d gone nuts at the charm bar in the head shop” but that was to cover that he was relieved that Bobby was at least having the courtesy to take his fears seriously.

 

_Meanwhile_

 

Cas felt as if his body, starting with his heart, was being ripped in half. Then he tumbled, tangled with Dean, and fell onto something strangely yielding. They grasped each other in the darkness, panting with fright and the pain of the fall. Cas felt an arm around him, and soon saw Dean in the light of his cell phone.

“Man, I think we’re fucked,” Dean said gloomily. Outside the cone of light, there was nothing to see. Inside, there was only them.

There was an unpleasantly loud humming, snapping noise, and Crowley appeared and fell heavily into Dean’s side.

Crowley, apparently too pissed to think things through, raised his hand to do something nasty to Dean and, without hesitation, Cas slid between them.

It was well meant, but unnecessary; wherever they were, Crowley was not able to wave his hand and make magic do anything.

“Dean fucking Winchester,” Crowley said with palpable disgust. The light from the phone was coming from below and he looked appropriately evil. “In any universe I’m in you’re either saving my ass or endangering it, and you’re not even a hunter in this universe.”

“I’ve hunted deer,” Dean said, confused.

“Dean,” Cas said, obviously not enjoying his vision of Bambi getting shot by his soul-husband.

Crowley warmed up. “And this is the first - fucking - universe in which you’ve gone for the soulmates magic, so picture my surprise that I wasn’t able to predict it, and we’re all going to die here of thirst and starvation while that arsepick Bobby Singer fumbles his way through all the wrong answers first and then triumphantly busts through that door to count our corpses.”

Cas, realizing that Crowley was now powerless, shoved him away.

"I'm gonna turn my cell phone off. I can always touch Cas without looking at him," Dean said, "But you I don't want to look at. And if you can't help us, shut the fuck up."


	20. Crowley Go Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bobby and Garth pull the boys out, but unfortunately Crowley comes along for the ride. Dean macks on Cas to get their rescuers to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next instalment Friday January 12, late. Comments please!

Crowley made a noise in the back of his throat.He grabbed Cas’s ankle in the darkness and wouldn’t let go.

“Fuck off!” Cas said.

“After I healed you, inside and out?” Crowley cooed. His grip tightened. Dean started slapping at his hand. Crowley’s phone shifted, and they could see each other again. Darkness lapped against them from all sides.

“Ow!” Cas said. “Why did you grab me?”

Crowley pretended to yawn, tapping his mouth daintily with the back of his spare hand. “Singer will probably figure out at some point that he’ll need to use soulmate magic to pull you back through the door. I need to stick close to you two.”

“Where are we?” Cas asked. Dean scooted next to him and put an arm around him. Cas nuzzled into him.

“I have to admit, watching you two mack on each other is harder to stomach than I thought it would be,” Crowley said. “But I suppose I should relax. You boys always get rescued by somebody; even God himself’s taken an interest a few times, at least on my side of the inter-dimensional pond.”

“God rescued us?” Cas asked, and then he gave a faint and rueful laugh. “So we’re famous in the other world?”

“You’re an angel who fell from heaven, and he’s a man who spent forty years in hell, and you rescued him, and you fell in love,” Crowley opened his eyes to their full extent - not a good look for him - rolled them in an exaggerated way and made jazz hands, shaking his phone around and making the light jump around in a nauseating way. “An epic romance for the ages.”

“Hunh,” Dean said, looking at Cas, since he was much easier on the eyes, even in this shitty light. “ _You_ rescued _me_.”

“On God’s orders,” Crowley said, “Or something like that. I’ve even rescued my world’s version of you, half a dozen times now. We’ve hunted together, have each other on speed dial.”

Dean’s mouth scrunched up. “I doubt that.”

“I don’t. I imagine you’re a pragmatist in whatever world you end up in,” Cas said.

Crowley laughed. “I spent months with both of you. I almost banged you, Dean, but you weren’t quite drunk enough.”

Dean visibly shuddered in disgust and closed his eyes. He shook his head, as if to dislodge what was obviously a horrible thought. He looked at his watch to distract himself.

“What the hell?”

His watch appeared to be working, but the second hand was stalled.

“This is a pocket universe. Time will flow differently here; in this case we’re slow and your universe is going by faster, which is a damned good thing or Singer wouldn’t have enough time to figure out how to retrieve you.”

Garth’s face suddenly appeared in the darkness.

“Hey fellas, and whoever the heck you are,” he said with a cheerful nod to Crowley. “This way. Bobby’s holding the door open and he says it’s hard work, being a human doorstop.” Crowley got up and tried to jump through the door; he bounced back like he’d hit a rubber wall.

“Leave him,” Dean said.

“I can’t,” Cas said. “It’s not right.”

“It’s a fucking bad idea!” Dean yelled. They could hear Garth and Bobby yelling too, but Cas ignored them, grasped Crowley by the hand and yanked as hard as he could.

Crowley slid across the kitchen floor face first and his head collided with a chair leg, hard. “Ow, for fuck’s sake, Feathers!” he yelled.

“Well done, Singer,” he said getting up and rubbing his head. “You got my tail out of one crack, now let me open the damned door homeward and I’ll be on my way.”

“No,” Bobby said, staring him down. “I need a way to contact you, just in case.”

“Why the fuck would I give you my digits?” Crowley scoffed.

“Send him home right now,” Dean said. “Asshole cannot be outta my house fast enough.”

“Not without some way of either preventing him from coming back or summoning him,” Bobby said implacably.

Dean looked at Crowley. Crowley looked at Dean. Dean dashed for the front door, Crowley in hot pursuit, and threw it open. Crowley ran through his one unwarded chance to vacate the premises like his ass was on fire, waved his hand to make a door on the front porch, and vanished.

“And — good fucking riddance,” Dean said. “Aw, Cas, quit looking like that. I did us all a favour.”

“I would have preferred that you take Bobby’s advice,” Cas said coldly. “He did heal me, even if it didn’t work out to his advantage.”

“I wonder if he’ll be back,” Garth said. He had a very blurry video of Crowley disappearing, which proved to be very disappointing on playback. “Nobody’s going to believe this, it looks like he jumped through a hula hoop made of Christmas lights while I shook the phone up and down,” he whined.

“He could have been a valuable asset in our attempts to get better defences against magical and supernatural beings,” Bobby said, glaring at Dean as if the turn of events was somehow his fault.

“Possibly, if he wasn’t so set on being the world’s biggest pain in my balls for the duration. And now that he’s gone, can I have my house back?”

“I’d leave the warding up, if I was you,” Bobby warned.

“What’s the point, if Cas here’s just gonna open the door and welcome him in?” Dean said sarcastically.

“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” Cas said. “I do _not_ want to get stuck in that dark place again; we might not have Bobby here, and ready and able to rescue us.”

“Fine,” Dean said. He was trying to maintain his composure and not doing a good job of it. “I should probably take the rest of the day off, but unfortunately I just blew off about fifteen hundred bucks of income, so this is me going to get some honey.”

Dean picked up a satchel and his gun and tried to leave again.

Cas spoke softly. “Dean.”

“What?”

“Dean, I made you a lunch and it’s still sitting in the fridge.”

Dean’s face softened. He ran his hand over Cas’s shoulder and a private smile stole over his mouth. “Hey,” he said. His eyes flashed over Bobby and Garth, who in his opinion were being too slow to pack up and get the hell out of his house.

“Yeah, let me get that out of the fridge,” Dean said, and now he was smirking and cocking an eyebrow at Cas.

“What?” Cas said suspiciously.

“What I really want is a taste of you,” and he pushed Cas back against the counter and kissed him, sweet and soft on the lips, but grind-y on the hips. Cas was torn. On one hand he knew they were being scandalously rude to people who’d helped them, and on the other hand, the idea of it just being the two of them again had a lot of appeal.

“What the hell’re you two doin’?” Bobby said, perplexed.

Garth had been standing in the living room watching the whole thing and he said, _sotto voce_ , “Bobby, I don’t know whether to flee screaming or start filming.”

Dean lifted his mouth to speak. He looked at Cas with a promise of very hot sex in his eyes. “You do and it’s the last thing you’ll ever do, ya pencil-necked - “

“I know you love me,” Garth said calmly.

“I think it’s debatable whether you should want him to, the way he’s flingin’ Cas all over the fixtures,” Bobby said.

“You’re just jealous ‘cause nobody’s kissed you like this recently,” Dean said. Garth could see a string of saliva between his mouth and Cas’s and that’s where he checked out.

“Okay, it’s not like I’m disgusted, I’m just overwhelmed at how completely inappropriate this is. C’mon, Bobby.” It took another minute for Bobby to pack up the rest of his paint and books and gear, but finally the front door banged and they were alone.

 


	21. I did my best to show him how

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All's well that ends well. Canon Dean and Sam circa season 12 make a brief appearance.

Dean pulled his mouth away and said quietly into Cas’s ear, “I just want to go back to bed and fuck you until I can no longer hear that _asshole_ saying that he nearly banged me in a different universe.” He shuddered.

“He did have a picture of you on his phone, but I know it was the other Dean,” Cas said reassuringly.

Dean sighed. “Jesus, as if I didn’t have enough disturbing thoughts in my head, there’s one more that just caught me right here,” Dean said, tapping his sternum with his fist.

“What’s that, Dean?” Cas said, nuzzling his neck.

“That they’re not — together — in the other universe. The version of you and the version of me.”

Cas nodded. “I have to admit that made me feel strange. I’ve heard a hundred trite stories about love that was fated to be, and always figured I’d settle for love that wasn’t cruel and disrespectful, not knowing I was going to end up in _your_ bed. I wonder if they’re just not suited to each other in the other universe.”

Cas drew away, put his head on one side and said, “Dean.”

Dean said, “Yeah Cas,” obediently. Cas gave a tiny smile and then become serious, but tender. Dean melted at his tone.

“What do you absolutely have to get done today?”

Dean considered this. “I do have work — I’ve just got no motivation for it right now! I mean, that was just some of the craziest shit I’ve ever seen. I feel like I should be freaking out. Instead I just feel numb and not like letting go of you. At all.”

“What happened with the door, and Crowley, was scary as hell and really intense, but I felt as long as you were with me I could handle anything,” Cas said.

“That’s an amazing compliment, but I’m not really —“ and Dean sighed and said, “You know what? I’m taking the day off. I’m just as likely to run over a mom pushing a stroller as drive into a tree, the way I am right now. I want you to distract me.”

“I can do that,” Cas said. His eyes smouldered, but his tone was cheerful. “Shall we start with a shower and getting clean?”

Dean pouted. “How am I supposed to get through a shower with you without rubbing one out on your sweet, sweet ass?”

“God-given strength of will, I guess,” Cas said, twinkling. “You’re supposed to wait until you can bury your dick in my ass.”

“But you, in addition to possessing a hot, tasty and fuckable ass, suck dick _unusually_ well,” Dean said. “How can I choose between two such amazing places to nut?”

Cas stifled a grin. “I don’t know, Dean. I have much the same problem. Maybe we can compare notes in the shower?”

Thirty seconds later, Cas was chiding Dean. “Dean, the clothes - your clothes go in the hamper, Dean what are you doing?”

Steam coiled around them as they settled on the method for the first orgasm _du jour_ : mutual hand jobs while kissing and supporting themselves on the grab bar. It was hard to concentrate, to stand, and kiss, and stroke, but after a few false starts they got into a feedback loop, mouths barely touching, tongues darting, panting into each other’s mouths, one hand gripping the hand rail with white knuckles, the other hand squeezing and stroking and tickling and twisting. Cas came first, letting go of Dean’s dick to pull on the back of his neck and bring his mouth closer, come draped for a second between Dean’s nipples and knees. After Dean gently stroked him through the last palpitations and twitches, Cas kissed him until they were both breathless. Then Cas eased back a trifle and, looking right into Dean’s eyes, stared into them until Dean’s pupils flared wide. His eyes closed and he grunted explosively. Firm jets of come sprayed onto Cas’s stomach; Dean muttered, “God, Cas,” and stood panting in the circle of Cas’s arms.

“We did actually come into this room to get _clean_ ,” Cas said.

Dean gave a self-mocking laugh. He grabbed a washcloth and the two of them took turns scrubbing each other. Dean laughed again and said, “Am I clean enough for you now?”

“I’ll take you clean or filthy,” Cas said, sliding by Dean to step out of the shower.

Dean did not enjoy being towelled off — ‘I like almost everything else you can do to me, but I just don’t feel right about another man drying off my junk — unless my arms are broken,’ and when he didn’t have the overwhelming need to grab a rail and yell Dean’s name, Cas found the bathroom confining, so he stepped out.

Someone rapped their knuckles hard on the front door. Cas turned his towel into a sarong and said, “I’ll get it!” and Dean yelled, “Cas, do not answer that.fucking.door.”

 

Cas swung the door open, telling himself that he didn’t want to live in fear.

He was looking into Dean’s face.

“What the fuck,” the Dean on the porch said blankly. He took in the longish wet hair and the towel and the generally fucked out glow and his mouth opened in shock.

“You’re in the bathroom,” Cas said, his mouth twisting in confusion. He looked over his shoulder.

The Dean on the porch said, “I’m right the fuck here.”

Cas took in that Sam, or some-sort-of-Sam, and that smirking asshole Brit, were also on the porch.

Sam said, “Uh, Crowley, what kind of mindfuck is this.”

The negligent drawl was as irritating as ever. “I found a cheaper and easier way to trot into a different universe. I wanted you to take a peek at this one.”

“Please come in,” Cas said, swallowing hard.

“Jesus, Cas,” his Dean said, having thrown on jeans and a t-shirt. He roared to a stop behind Cas and stood, barefoot and still damp, and glared at all of them.

Sam and Dean, well used to doppelgängers, were blasé. “What’s so special about this universe?” Sam said, although as he registered that this universe’s Cas and Dean seemed to have stepped out of the shower at the same time, his voice lost some volume at ‘universe’.

Crowley actually laughed aloud and turned away for a moment to compose himself.

Dean glared at himself. “So this is the badass version of me? And this is the badass version of Sam?”

Crowley pronounced three words, and the golden letters reappeared on his forearm and were matched by a line of golden letters on Cas.

“What the hell’s that?” the other Dean said, moving closer to the door in startlement. His brother had the opposite reaction, and moved in for a closer look before the letters vanished again.

“Huh,” Sam said. “The soulmate bond.”

“You knew about this?” his brother demanded.

Sam made a little face. He knew perfectly well how his brother felt about witches, including and maybe especially Crowley’s powerhouse of a mother. “I - Rowena showed it to me. It’s pretty intense. Who said the liturgy at the service? You can’t do it just the two of you, someone else has to help.”

“Some gruff old dude named —“

“Bobby Singer,” other Dean and other Sam said simultaneously. Other Dean grinned briefly and said, “Jinx.” Then he went back to looking pissed.

“I wasn’t expecting it, and I had other uses planned for this one,” Crowley said resentfully, flicking an index finger briefly in Cas’s direction. “But it doesn’t seem to matter, now does it boys, which universe I traverse! Your friends will rise from the sodding grass like mosquitoes, in droves, and suck the life from anything I might have planned.”

“It was horrible, and you got what you deserved,” Cas said.

“What happened?” Sam asked sharply.

“Don’t tell me!” other Dean crowed. “You and this universe’s Bobby Singer found a way to fuck Crowley up!”

“Now boys,” Crowley said, as if this was not how he expected things to go. “This is hardly civil. Let’s head back where we belong and leave these two lovebirds to themselves.”

“Lovebirds,” other Dean said faintly.

“Yeah,” Dean said, and he turned Cas around and grabbed his ass with one hand, and the back of his neck with the other and ground the sloppiest, dirtiest, handsiest kiss into Cas’s mouth that he could.

“Dean!” Cas squeaked into his mouth. Dean artfully let go of Cas’s ass and the sarong returned to its true form, this time on the floor. Cas struggled for a second longer and then dug in.

Other Dean’s eyes ranged down Cas’s frame and stopped halfway. He blinked hard, once. The last Dean saw of him were his own eyes reflecting a longing that would not give way to either words or action, while Sam literally dragged his brother backward through the door. Crowley’s evil chuckle was the last sound they heard before the door clicked closed.

 

“And good fucking riddance,” Dean said, after licking Cas’s lower lip. “Crowley’s got no more business with you, and those other guys that are us — and how fucked up is that? — don’t have any reason to come back and now we can just live happily ever after.”

“I was hoping he’d eat some pie,” Cas said. “There’s a lot of pie here.”

“Fuck that other Dean!” Dean said passionately. “If he thought he was going to get any of my pie, he’s nuts. I’ma shank him, hand ta God.”

Cas found this a bit much. “Oh, Dean, please don’t threaten to murder somebody over a pie! Explaining a dead doppelgänger from another universe would be hard, so on top of everything else you’d have to hide your own body, which you have to admit would be both creepy and inconvenient. I mean, what if we had to cut you up?”

There was a silence while Dean contemplated this. Their noses were about two inches apart, and they were both breathing a little fast.

Dean finally spoke. “I don’t know which is worse, you being so sweet about helping me dispose of the other Dean, or telling me that killing someone over pie, especially your pie, is some kind of bad idea.”

They necked for a while longer. Cas seemed to be a Dean sponge, radiating sexual enthralment with every caress.

“Do you suppose the other Dean will find happiness with _his_ Cas?” Cas said after coming up for air.

“I certainly fucking hope so,” Dean said. “I did my best to show him how.”

 

-FIN-

**Author's Note:**

> finalllllyyyy! Hope you like the wrap-up, and if you liked it let me know!


End file.
